Aug 3, 2024
🎵 Ganahan ko kitang duha diri mugpahuway. 🎵
In a duet with myself
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Syria
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Brazil
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from South Korea
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Costa Rica
seen from Singapore
🎵 Ganahan ko kitang duha diri mugpahuway. 🎵
In a duet with myself
🎶 Bumabalik ang lahat sa tuwing nagkukulitan 🎶
It was raining 🌧️
And I just missed singing this song so much.
Several years ago, I sang this song so often—at least once a day, if my estimation is correct.
‘Coz it’s frightening to be swimming in this strange sea and I’d rather be here than on land.
🎵 How is it now that somehow you're a stranger, you were mine just yesterday? 🎵
12-28-2022
🎶 Ohhhh I’m yours 🎵
This postcard...
One of the highlight activities in our team’s year-end party was the “postcard” thingy. A month before the party, we’re handed out 6x4-inch blank cardboards and we’re asked to use it as a canvas for a colorful artwork that would represent our fiscal year—we may use any medium.
This is the first time I got to use these connector pens I won from the Campus Journalists' Got Talent back in 2013.
I wasn’t able to say everything that I wanted to say when I was chosen to speak—I had a script in my head, but it disappeared when I stood up—so here’s what it is about.
It’s an excel sheet, being carried by three of my doodle characters. That’s because we stare at excel sheets most of the time. Those three represent the main sheets I usually look at—Design Team Tracker, Attendance Sheet, and PTO Sheet.
And… That’s not true.
They told us that we are free to use any medium that we want. Aside from ink and colored markers, my medium of choice is actually music. I know the artwork has to be colorful, but music also has colors, right? (Ever heard of tone color?)
Anyway, my illustration is a visual representation of a guitar tab. That’s why the table has six rows. It represents the six strings of a guitar—just like how normal tabs are.
The song I chose…
It takes a lot of courage to be true.
Back in my previous job, I felt like I wasn’t being true to who I am because of my eagerness to belong and my incessant strive to do what is asked of me without any question in order to impress certain people. There was a point as well when my words did not matter—like I didn’t have a voice.
Hence, I lost the courage to speak up. Which was ironic since I was a campus journalist and I didn’t have any problem voicing out difficult issues.
That’s why I left that job—it’s not the primary reason, but it’s one of many.
At present though… I never felt this.
As a matter of fact, it’s the opposite. Where I am now, I’m encouraged to speak up, to ask questions whenever I’m unsure, and to always be myself.
And who I am in the past year is just me being true to who I am.
During the first few months that we didn’t get any projects, I read books and busied myself with the hobbies that I love. I was also asked to lead the committee which organized a virtual Christmas party for our team. It was stressful but I enjoyed it still because I’m passionate about these activities.
For every task that was given to me, I always aimed to do my best. That’s not with the goal of impressing anybody or getting high performance reviews. That’s just who I am.
And of course, last June, I joined the Pride’s Got Talent contest, not with the goal of winning, but simply for the thrill and happiness of participating—and in the process, I came out to the team. In my entire life, I’ve never been so overwhelmed with this much acceptance from other people.
I would never have had the courage to do all that had it not been for my supportive colleagues.
So… this song that I chose is a perfect theme song for my story.
Tabs make use of numbers to indicate which fret on a string you’d have to put your fingers on when you pluck. I used colors instead of numbers for my postcard: green is 0, blue is 1, purple is 2, and orange is 3. The pattern-filled boxes indicate the chords.
In my postcard, I only illustrated the intro of this song. When the whole tab is played, it would sound like this:
Back in 2012, I made an animated music video for my best friend’s 18th birthday party—her “debut” as we call it. Simply put, it was a cartoon version of me singing Jack Johnson’s “Better Together.”
I didn’t know how to play a guitar back then, so I just used an instrumental I found online and recorded my voice over it.
I picked that song because my best friend and I haven’t seen each other constantly ever since we graduated high school, and I missed the times when we literally spent everyday together.
Eventually, I learned how to play the guitar, and learned how to play my favorite Jack Johnson songs. Despite that, his songs aren’t in my usual playlist. They’re always in my head, though, and I can easily recall and play them whenever I want to.
Until... A few nights ago, I wanted to play “Better Together” for someone, but I totally forgot how. So I looked up some tabs and was finally able to play it again.
Ten years have passed since I first heard this song. It’s still the same, but it means so different to me now.
🎶 Now I know why they say the best things are free. 🎶