Skipping the tons of things I've done since my last post, I'm very glad to be back. This blog is going through a small revamp; I've since finished school, am on my third job, and am also pretty sure my frontal lobe has developed a lot since then.
I'm happy to welcome you to my new page, where I'm going to be exploring learnings in my post-school life, musings on where I'm going and what I'm doing, and all of the other fun stuff. I'm seeing this blog as something like a digital garden. I can't keep it private (primary blogs can't be set on a password), so I suppose I can just share myself in this little corner of the world.
I've been reading Deep Work by Cal Newport, a sort of guide book on how to shine with intense focus and concentration in a very distracted world. It's been great; this blog is a part of my way to document my deep work and life developments as a part of my journey.
You'll be seeing a sneak peek of my learnings, insights, and all of the new stuff I'm absorbing at 27. Learning is a lifelong endeavor, and this is a small part of my commitment to that. You'll be seeing a lot more of me :)
Hi, tumblr. It's been awhile. I only seem to update every couple of years when something captures my fancy.
I've been thinking seriously about pursuing Mandarin studies, both as a learning journey and as a hobby. I feel like I've always enjoyed Chinese food and culture and particularly the language. I hope I'll be able to share more about it if I decide to invest in it more seriously.
In lieu of a 2-year update, I return with a heavy heart to mourn Chad Booc, a teacher of indigenous children. He was recently killed in what right-wing media refers to as a “clash” between the military and state rebels.
I am reminded of one of the books that changed my view on education, the Rainbow Troops. It was about a young school teacher who serviced the underserved: schoolchildren who could not afford their education, who were not given education, because of a mining corporation threatening to close the school.
It is the same book that brought me to create this blog in the first place.
Chad Booc was one such teacher, who gave up the usual dream of working in tech or climbing the corporate ladder for the road not taken.
The path of activism and service is an easy choice in our youth, when all we have is our ideals. When you grow older, the path to activism seems to fit in a little box that you put away in your memory storage. Responsibilities pile up. The “real” world comes to life. Adulthood has the tendency to make you selfish, because selfishness is what allows you to create profit, to strive for comfort, to support your own circle.
Half a decade ago, we mourned the loss of Jo Lapira, who left her privileged life as a college student and went to serve the countryside. It is only now in the bloom of my adulthood that I feel that we did not mourn enough-- that we still cannot mourn enough for the loss of our martyrs.
I realize now, in my working life, how great a sacrifice it is to leave your life of comfort for a life that does not guarantee profit, stability, safety. How selfless it is for a person like Chad, to reject the lures of individualism in favor of collective action. The children, I am sure, will miss you the most.
There is a quote by Mao, that applies to Jo as it does to Chad:
“To die for the people is weightier than Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.”
You teach us that education is the right of the underserved. You tell us that a life without service is a life gone to waste. Your death is a painful reminder of how far we have yet to go. We remember you, Kevin, Jurain, and the individuals who were mercilessly killed today.
There is so much love for you, Chad. So many people admire you for the work you have done and the legacy you have left for us to continue. Indeed, your death is heavier than the Sierra Madre.
So said Cheryl Strayed, quoting some author on Tiny Beautiful Things. There are so many things to reflect on when it comes to the decisions we do or don’t make. I want to open up about them in my next post and talk about being a recent graduate and a student.
When we say the future has an ancient heart, we hold something like the duality theory of light as both a wave and a particle. How can light be both a wave and a particle, and yet neither? Our hearts know of what the future holds, and yet something like the future cannot be foretold. A lot of things have happened since my last relevant posts here, and I want to share some of that.
In an attempt to revive my blog (it’s 2020 as I write this), I present to you a list of my reads from 2019. I will have to update you with some of my 2020 choices.
In the last two years, I didn’t really put much thought into this blog. I could say I was practically just living life, not really putting my presence on the tumblrsphere. I will have to return here so I can talk about my academics, the ups and downs of it all. I do have a lot in store (maybe?). I want to write about everything, anything. I am entering a new phase in life (we’ll get to that later).
Here are the books I read in 2019:
Eat Pray Love
NLP Made Easy
Neuro Linguistic Programming
The Rose That Grew From Concrete by Tupac Shakur
Choosing Me Before We
Personal Finance for Dummies
Why Men Love B*tches
This Book is Not For You (unfinished, didn’t like it)
Women Who Run With the Wolves
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Origins of the Family
Mastering Adulthood
The Astrological Neptune and the quest for redemption
The Positive Shift
Man and His Symbols by CG Jung
Cravings
War of Art
The Power of Habit
Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake
The Defining Decade
Insight by Tasha Eurich
Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen
The 4 Agreements
Tiny Beautiful Things
Inner Work
The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings
The Courage to be Disliked
The Hate U Give
Becoming (unfinished, also didn’t like it)
How To Be Parisian Wherever You Are
The Rules Do Not Apply
The Everything Guide to NPD
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
The Artist’s Way
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
TCOYF
An Economic History of the Philippines
An Unquiet Mind
Protest/Revolutionary Art in the Philippines by A. Guillermo
During the last week of every year, I often draft resolutions for the next. On the few days of 2017, I gave myself the time to do one of my favorite things: reading. As a college student, it’s always hard to make time for yourself, especially when you’re adjusting to new schedules and workloads. However, I finally found the explanation for why hobbies should never be taken for granted.
It’s because our hobbies make us more productive. The more time we spend doing the things that we love, the more happy we become. I am a firm believer that happiness presupposes our success, and never the other way around.
The wording for this, I found in one of the books I listed down below.
And so, with that idea in mind, I don’t think that reading or painting or tending to our natural inclinations will ever be a waste of time. If it makes you happy (and if it’s legal), go for it! What is there to life when we don’t enjoy the things that we do?
However, as a student of the third world and as an undergraduate in the development studies program, these hobbies are mostly bourgeois. Not everybody has the resources to read. I’d love to do research on this one time, and i want to know whether or not the rural youth can have a natural inclination for the arts given that generational poverty makes it hard to be a creative (which has usually been stereotyped as a bourgeois profession and hobby). It’s a tragedy that not everyone can enjoy the pleasure of such enlightening hobbies, and I really wish my country had more resources to nurture a love for culture and the arts among our youth, especially the urban and rural poor.
I’ve never really considered myself a lover of books, but looking back, I did my fair share of reading. I love the smell of old books (not so much the content, especially when the writing style is archaic), and I realized that I often frequented the library as a child. My first foray into books, I think, would have to be the piles of Dr. Seuss creations my father had as a child. And then, I moved onto the Little Prince in the second grade (not that I understood it then).
After my first taste of literature, I would go on to read more. I can’t exactly remember my book preferences as a child but I did enjoy several pieces that changed my view on many things.
One of the books that I specifically remember that impacted me was the one on Ninoy and Cory Aquino (which admittedly made me a “dilawan” when I was in the second grade), and a picture book of a certain victim in WW2. I attempted to read Little Women in the third grade, and then I loved the Dear Dumb Diary series. Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli was also a game-changer when I was in High School. I attempted to read Plato’s Republic, but as I said, when the writing style is archaic, it’s not very fun to read.
Now that I really think of it, I did read an amount back then. Oh, how I wish I had the time to go back into my old high school’s library so that I could spend hours and hours on the mats to read again.
I also really enjoyed paging through my mother’s Merriam-Webster Garfield edition, simply because the comics made it easier to understand what the words meant. The comics were very cute and funny, as well. My grandmother had a little shelf in her office which used to be filled with books on business and health, and i remember taking one home. It showed natural remedies for body ailments. I loved the smell of that book.
There was also one encyclopedia that I frequented reading when I was around 9 or 10. I credit the foundations of my knowledge on this one. I suddenly knew things about Johannes Gutenburg, Leonardo Da Vinci, the Greek Gods and Goddesses, Marco Polo, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, the solar system, the types of flowers, and even some tidbits on the Battle of Waterloo. My other grandmother also lent me one of her encyclopedias that had curious pages on Siamese Twins, Gibraltar, the invention of the Helicopter, Louis Armstrong, and much more.
It was truly a blessing to have grandmothers who nurtured my love for reading. My maternal grandma bought me Nancy Drew, and even purchased random fact books for me to read. Now that I’m older, I really do wish that public libraries had more funding for leisure books, and that my own college would follow suit. It’s one of the greatest pleasures in life.
Back to my original post intention!!
When I looked back on the books that I read this year, I realized that I almost got to my goal of having at least one book per week. However, I didn’t really get to read according to schedule. Most of the time, I read when I’m free. It’s a good way to keep your mind running on things. It’s a powerful form of learning when you read for enjoyment, because you end up remembering what you’ve read.
So, for 2018 (so far), I have read 32 books. I’m not sure if the younger me read more on average, but it seems like too little, especially when you have so many days in the year. So, here is my list of books and some commentary.
1. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
2. Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
3. The Happiness Advantage
4. Living Forever Chic
5. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
6. I’ve Got Your Number by Sophie Kinsella
7. Adultery by Paulo Coelho
8. The Idiot by Elif Batuman
9. Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan
10. China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan
11. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
12. Subliminal Psychology by Michael Pace
13. Mastery by Robert Greene
14. Insatiable by Asa Akira
15. The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
16. The Philippine Tatler - November 2018
17. The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
18. The EasyWay to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr
19. The Millionaire Next Door
20. An Incomplete Education
21. The Elegance of the Hedgehog
22. Sweetbitter
23. Goodbye, Things
24. Absolute Beauty
25. Conspiracies and Secret Societies
26. Life Skills
27. Picasso by Cartier
28. Bakit Hindi Ka Crush ng Crush mo?
29. Help! Ayoko na sa jowa ko!
30. Health Psychology
31. The Crystal Seer
32. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (unfinished - people actually finished this?)
This morning I woke up around seven, I went out in the chilly weather and I couldn’t feel any fatigue even though I slept 3h last night. When I got back home I had a cup of coffee and I started writing and sketching, it was a pleasing day and I feel so productive.
It’s currently 8am where I am. I am on my bed, listening to soothing Christmas songs as I type this. Where do I begin... it’s November.
It’s my last academic year, and boy, I didn’t expect time to fly so quickly. I recall writing about my first year. I blink, and suddenly I’m here thinking of a yearbook write-up. In a few days, I’ll be having my photo taken for my sablay picture, which is the graduation photo of UP students. Time really is flying.
Senior year, so far, has been one hell of a ride. Academically, it feels like it’s my worst year. Emotionally, it has been half redeeming, but also half torturing. It’s taken a toll on me, but it is in part, something that had to be felt in some way or form. It is my last Christmas in college, before my life unfolds for me.
My school work has honestly been a little mediocre, and I’ve been complacent. I’m hoping that I can work all of this out, because I have an undergraduate thesis and a couple of things to work on for my other classes. There are things to plan and for me, what comes to mind is Elle Woods on the elliptical, trying to read her books for law school. I don’t want to dismiss the effort I gave in, as I find myself surrounded by reviewers and little reminders to myself. Nonetheless, we can always strive to do a little extra.
To be honest with you, this year was filled with things I’ve done that I wasn’t really proud of. Things that I ought to be ashamed of, but things that I will still appreciate myself for. This year, I stood my ground. I gave my best shot to the things I had to. I’m out here doing things that I believe to be good for me, and with a little peer-analysis, I think I’m on my way to becoming a better person.
One thing though, I failed to recognize the things I taught to myself until as of late. If you ever feel low, or sad really, I think it’s good practice to list down or remember the things that you wished were taught to you, but instead you taught to yourself. A couple that I have in mind are better communication skills, emotional resilience, self-reflection, a nurtured love for hobbies like art and cooking. It’s a beautiful thing to realize that you are constantly teaching yourself things, things that maybe your parents or your authority figures could have taught to you and yet you taught to yourself. The act of educating, learning about things that pique your interest, or even things that are essential to you- it’s gold.
I want to say that I’m a very sensitive person deep inside. I think, I am soft. I’m gooey, I’m melting, all that jazz. It might not be obvious to the general population, because my exterior remains rough and catty. But what else can I do other than to first accept these things about myself before I plan to change? I am stuck between the question of accepting things as they are and wanting to change. But what I really want to know is what is real, and what I am. And then, I guess I can work from there.
I have a couple of weeks left before my month-long holiday break. I wish you all well, and I wish you a semester filled with hard work and confidence in yourself. Believe in yourself. Believe yourself.
To anyone who has made it this far (not in this post, in this semester!) I congratulate you. We’re on our way!
