14 Four Cafe

Photos by Lianne Bacorro, unless otherwise stated.

The day before Grad, my Tita invited me and my sister to a restaurant somewhere in Taytay. She described it as "artsy" and I wasn't disappointed when I saw it.

Post-Grad Thoughts

Things I'm grateful for from High School:

1. Meeting all these amazing people who I definitely hope to keep in touch with in the years to come. That includes fellow students, teachers, staff, and everyone I was introduced to within the hallowed halls of my Alma Mater.
2. Being able to read most (if not, fully, all... hehehe) of our assigned readings for both English and Filipino. If it weren't for these subjects, I definitely wouldn't have been half-assed to become as exposed to all kinds of literature available to me.
3. Growth. Not so much physically as emotionally and maturely, that's for sure. Whenever I look back at Grade School, it's mostly composed of bad or embarrassing memories. But now, reminiscing about the past four years of my life, it wasn't so bad in that place after all. For being there all those terrible, pre- and pubescent years, I thank my school.

It's been almost a week since grad as I type this (it's 8 PM on a Saturday night [editing this 9 AM on Easter Morning]), and you might wonder why now, of all times, I'm bothered to actually do this. I do too. As I wait in the backseat of my parents' car, patiently waiting to go home. I apologize for not being able to post as much as I could've earlier.

I still vehemently abhor the generalization that "High School makes up the best four years of your life." Because, paraphrasing Hank Green from memory, if they are the best four years of your life, you must be having a really bad life so far. Who are you, Tom Buchanan?

Don't get me wrong: as much as I like High School, it always, always gets better after.

Dear Miriam College High School. Our batch president said it the best, but I'm gonna say it again:

1. Thank you for the wisdom, the joy, the helping hand, the memories.
2. I'm sorry for disappointing myself and making you the cause. I'm sorry I let you get in the way of being all I can be.
3. I love you.

Happy Easter, folks!

UPCYCLE CHALLENGE: The School Skirt

Hey hey hey, it's Grad season again. (Maybe I shouldn't say "again". It is, after all, my first and last time graduating High School.)

Now, here in the Philippines, a lot of High Schools require uniforms, whether private or not. Just recently my schoolmates found a very interesting piece of Topshop clothing that looks exactly like our uniform's skirt. This got me to thinking: so we aren't very far from being fashown, after all.

My friends/batchmates Corinne and Riva thought about modifying our own school uniforms so that they could be more wearable in public and less harmful to space in our house and the environment. I (used to) have at least four in my closet - one for each weekday, plus a couple of spares from previous years. The material, to be quite honest, is pretty hot and heavy (excuse my language) and isn't your usual casual, go-to kind of cloth. More on that in another post.

This post, however, is about promoting a project - something of a collaboration by girls who DIY not only from our school but from other schools as well.

According to Wikipedia,

Upcycling is the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

My first ever Upcycle Challenge focuses on, as you might've deduced from before, school skirts and how versatile they can actually be. Make your school proud and flaunt just how resourceful and creative people from your alma mater come from!

Here's the poster I came up with:

I'm itching to see not only my batchmates' entries but also anyone else who'd like to take up the challenge.

If you want to join this Upcycle Challenge, comment with a link to your blog/Instagram/tweet/etc. post and I'll include it in my UC:TSS master post some time in April, when I'll expect a couple of entries already up. :)

P.S. I'm probably going to keep just one uniform intact, for posterity's sake. Hihi.

Ang Babae (The Woman)

by Patricia Ramos

AN: Something I composed in the car last night. Might record it later.

For heroes. And Sir Bigs.

***

I love a woman,

But I hate a woman. No. I despise her. I'm disgusted by her. Sometimes, the very thought of her infuriates me into the red of my blood and the white of my bones.

She loved thrice, but she was no whore. 

The first took her maidenhood just when she was a girl all her own. He taught her how to pray, and he taught her how to cover up, and taught her that almost everything about her was bad

and she believed him. 

300 years, she believed him, to the point that she smelted herself down and tried to fit herself into the mold of his ideal woman (even though, deep inside, she knew she never could be). She took his words and stuffed them into her flesh until she shone in all shades of glutathione-white and dumbly followed with angel-like veneration. 

Sometimes, she came to her senses and tried to fight, tried to convince him that she was more than he made her out to be. Always, always, she failed. 

And when she had practically become what he wanted her to be, and almost - almost - lost everything she was, he was taken away.

The second was gallant and blonde and tall, and filled her pretty little mind with the Charlston and green, across-the-bay eyes and Coca Cola. 

He was her knight in shining aluminum armor and the way she reflected off of it so bright and blinding made her squint and think that it was all him when in fact, it was all her. He was just trying to show her.

But soon all she ever wanted was to be just. 

Like. 

Him. 

He swept her off her feet and drank her like a rootbeer float, and all that filled her mind was gaining his approval, and pleasing him, and being just, like, him. He kissed her silly and promised her all sorts of things like change and education and electricity, and even though he did give much of this to her she began to forget she was also her own person. 

She was infatuated with thoughts of a foreign dream and told herself that when you make it there, you make it anywhere, until she forgot "there" was here all along.

The third was a surprise. The white sheets on her bed were stained with a single circle of blood red and even in the morning she couldn't bear thinking about a rising sun. He built a cross upon her lung and until today she has trouble breathing because of it. Then she was the damsel in distress who had to be swept out of a misery by her blonde and blue-eyed Hercules.

When it was time for her second beau to leave she was practically learning how to walk again. Her thin little fawn legs top-heavy with the weight of a war past, her hair no longer as black and lustrous and long as before, and her heart so dark and greedy it infected those of the poor young provincial lads who ever dared to venture there, who ever dared to make it there.

I hate a woman. But this is not her fault.

Her family members crowd around her with relics and surgical needles and curfews and campaign posters, telling her she needs nothing but approval from everyone else but herself. She was young when she was taught that what she was was never satisfactory, and when she was cursed to never think herself worthy of anything, even her own self-confidence.

This is not her fault.

I hate a woman. But I love a woman.

I loved her when, finally, she stood up against a brother who told her never to speak up when it was against him. He was clever when he clothed her in grey and forced her into shoes that were white and way too small for her. 

He called her gorgeous around other people but went to lengths to hide how ugly he found her. 

He made friends with her second boyfriend, his yellow hair now streaked with salt and pepper, and sometimes lent her out to him just for dollars and dollars and dollars. Her ex told her he could never do that to her, because she loved her, even though it was no longer in that way. He paid her brother anyway.

One day, she came out of her room in all yellow - a yellow dress, a yellow headband, yellow shoes that fit her perfectly - and when he told her to go back to her room and change into her proper clothes she kicked him all the way to Hawaii. She won.

I love her for this. I remember, even though to her it is a distant memory.

I love her for the sun in her coppered, ruddy skin, and the stars in her chocolate eyes (three in each one). I love her for the way her nose was wideset and snubbed, and the rough, grizzly twang in every English enunciation. I love her for all the ways she talks. I love her for the days where she smells like crushed sampaguita and the nights where her scent is dama de noche. I love her for she is home.

I love her for what she is, and I love her even though she does not know it.

I hate a woman only because she does not know how to love herself.

Teen Gods

(For lack of a better title)

Guess what I accidentally stumbled upon yesterday when I settled into Fully Booked after an impromptu Katipunan adventure??? Only the book I've been (until now, UNFRUITFULLY) searching for since my birthday last year!

Yeah, I've been wanting to grab a copy of Mina V. Esguerra's Interim Goddess of Love since, like, forever, but I've only been able to find e-books. I don't even own an e-book reader. I was already prepared to give up hope - Fully Booked Regis, after all, was not the first place I would think carried local fic.

But glory upon glories, as they played THE ENTIRE ALBUM OF MAKING MIRRORS (it's destiny, I tell ya) overhead I found this curiously familiar-looking pocketbook perched on a tiny shelf that had other Filipino books on it. I didn't hesitate to spend my 175 on it.

Golly gosh, was the wait worth it.

Okay. So I've never read Mina V. Esguerra before. To tell you the truth, I'm actually not that into chick lit. I was never a huge fan of first-person rom-com types (blame it on Twilight?). But when I found out about the premise of IGoL (sophomore becomes Goddess of Love because she has a connection to them a la Percy Jackson [demi-god] and she gets to interact with a bevy of other Philippine Gods. Did you hear me correctly? PHILIPPINE GODS.) I fell in love with it immediately and forced myself to make an effort to get my hands on it. Also I started following Mina V. Esguerra on Twitter and on her blog.

When I first read it the exposition seemed a little fast-paced, because, whoa, hot guy suddenly taking interest in new girl? I was scared of Hannah Maquiling turning into a Mary Sue pretty quickly. However, my fears vanished when she started becoming relatable - slowly but surely, she was turning out to be awkward, and inexperienced, and in a way bound by society. Even though there were a ton of guys (read: four) who found her attractive, she didn't make a mention once of how literally attractive she found herself to be, save for the one time she got into one of these guys' heads. Besides, the one guy she really, truly likes doesn't like her back. Totally imperfect, totally great. I love Hannah.

I guess one of the reasons I was so reeled in was the whole Cupid plot thing. I ship everything. Long story short, everyone should read this book. I'm not kidding. Everyone. Even your mom.

To celebrate me finally getting this book, I compiled a playlist. :D

YT Links:

Fidelity by Regina Spektor

Ewan (cover) by Imago

TL Ako Sa'Yo (cover) by Kitchie Nadal

Two Way Street by Kimbra

Hear Me by Imagine Dragons

Just Say Yes by Snow Patrol

Please Please Please by The Smiths

All You Need Is Love (cover) by Across the Universe cast

Sweet Disposition by The Temper Trap

3.2.13.

True story.

***

He was wearing nothing but a red hoodie, jeans, and his sun-drenched skin. Hung across his chest was a makeshift drum set. It was all pipes and milk cans strung together to make a living. He walked to the end of the jeepney and sat down upon its steps, willing to help while away the wait of a red traffic light for a price.

He beat away, and even though the sound was drowned out by my iPod and the radio and the interior of the car some of the thumps came in nonsensical rhythm. His face was etched out in singing -loud, tired, desperate.

When he was finished he trooped back into the jeep with a hunched back and his hand outstretched to receive the envelopes he had previously passed around in hopes of charity. He emerged with a handful of ampao envelopes and his drum set still on its string around his shoulder.

The boy walked out into traffic and picked out the contents of the envelopes. His audience was back in the jeepney, briefly amused, and quite certain they weren't going to see the likes of him again. One of them had put a single coin in the envelope, thinking nothing of it.

He pocketed only the amounts he valued, until the coin - not even a peso - was alone on his palm. He knocked his arm back as far as it could go. Then, he tossed it into the sky with frustration and a curse under his breath.

The traffic light shone green.

Unos

My Tagalog-Shakespeare feels started to tingle this week, and the only way to abate them was to draw something.

Now, once upon a time, I thought about adapting a Filipino The Tempest called Unos. I remember drawing a bunch of things, but all that's lost to time now. So I started fresh.

Notice the deterioration in effort per character the less colors I have. Haha. These palettes, by the way, come from the indescribably inspiring Landscape Palettes Tumblr.

Hopefully I could come up with concept art of the rest of the characters. I've been itching to do Caliban as well. :) But for now, here's the most recent art post on my dreadfully art-less art blog.

Oh, and speaking of Caliban, I whipped this up on a whim under my Filipino!Shakespeare fever:

Huwag mangamba. Ang isla'y puno ng alingawngaw. / Mga tunog at kalugod-lugod na hanging nagbibigay ng katuwaan at 'di namiminsala. / Minsa'y isang-libong instrumentong tumutugtog / Ang umuugong at pumapalibot sa aking tainga, at minsa'y mga bosesNa, kapag ako'y nagising matapos ang isang mahabang pagidlip, / Ay muling magpapatulog sa akin; at, sa aking pananaginip, /
Inakala ko'y ang mga alapaap ay bubukas at magpapakita ng kayamanang /
Handang malaglag para sa akin, nang ako'y gumising, /
Ako'y tumangis para managinip muli.Inakala ko'y ang mga alapaap ay bubukas at magpapakita ng kayamanang / Handang malaglag para sa akin, nang ako'y gumising,Ako'y tumangis para managinip muli.

Cheers! :D

On "The death of the 'graphic novel'"

Okay. I love the Philippine Star Supreme, and Young*Star as well, and I've read some pretty agreeable articles by Jiggy and Jonty Cruz before, but the front page article today entitled "The death of the 'graphic novel'" got me a little riled up.

I have to admit, it took me two readings to get what they were trying to say. I admit that I was blinded by accusations of fake geekery and not being allowed to participate in the subculture before I really gained that comprehension. However, I still am bothered by the article, mainly because I've been taught before that you can't be told not to like something based solely on how much of the Universe you've immersed yourself in.

Really, Misters Cruz, I get what your message was: you're addressing the fact that people use the word "graphic novel" to safeguard their douchebaggery in a masterful disguise of hipster glasses and thinking they know all about comics because they've ~*~*read The Sandman and Alan Moore*~*~ and the misuse of comics altogether. I acknowledge and commend the fact that you're defending what you love!

But a lot of the words came off to me as hypocritical and self-righteous.

And trust us, no one rants more than comic geeks, so it’s best to stay on our good side.

Not pretentious at all...?

It is not meant for you to work on your vanity. If that is your end goal for reading Green Lantern, then we are telling you right now, you are doing it wrong.

It should not be used as a step in your social ladder to gain acceptance in whatever cool group you want to be a part of. You read comics because you like them and that’s it.

Debating on whether or not it’s a graphic novel shouldn’t be stressed over. If you like comics, take each as it is. Read it and judge it according to your own prejudices and opinions. Whether it’s Archie or V for Vendetta, the enjoyment should be based on what it is and not on what others claim it should be.

All I'm saying is that it seems weird how they're ranting about people who use the term "graphic novel" as arrogant and putting their bragging rights and "all-around knowledge" over having fun in reading comics, and yet here they are, generalizing a lot of people who just want to read comics and get involved in discussion as "wannabes" and "fake geeks" and basically (at least, from what I got), telling these people to earn their approval before ever daring to invite themselves into their Dungeons & Dragons playing circle or whatever. Get what I'm saying?

I'm sorry if I'm being one of those "fake geeks", okay? I'm sorry I use the word "graphic novel". I'm sorry I don't fit into your amazing, expert standards, so much so that I'm not allowed to like what I like. I'm sorry I can't afford to have a weekly visit to the nearest Comic Alley or Sputnik in order to qualify as someone who actually enjoys comics. I'm sorry I haven't passed the Aptitude Test for being a superfan. But God Almighty be my witness, I am f*cking working on it.  And I will never, ever let anyone (with all due respect, not even you, Jiggy and Jonty Cruz) discourage me from doing so.

Finally, I leave you with a quote that perfectly encapsulates how I feel:

Calling it whatever name you can think of should not stop you from appreciating what it essentially is. It’s not only pointless but it is one that hurts the industry. It does not in any way encourage new readers and it insults the audience it already has. It alienates rather than accepts, and the longer it continues, the weaker the industry gets. End of discussion.

Sure, Misters Cruz, keep telling yourselves that. I know you're referring to people preferring the term "graphic novel" over "comics", but doesn't it occur to you that that's exactly what you're doing? Discouraging people to use "graphic novel" because you think it makes them look like "pretentious assholes who don't want to seem immature just because they use 'comics'" is the same as that.

Just a thought. :(