If you noticed, I changed my playlist and put in songs that are more of the punk rock genre. Hope you guys like it.
Friday, October 31
At Long Last, I Finished The Enrollment
Classes start Monday, but that's if I have enough energy or the mood to go to school. Hehe
Tuesday, October 28
A constant struggle
It has been days since I've last posted an entry, perhaps it's because I haven't found the strength to do so, or perhaps I was just so addicted to RAN Online that I forgot about posting on this blog. As the days passed, I've always been in constant struggle with myself, what I will do, what I will say, whom I will trust, it's always been hard for me to decide as to which course of action will I take regarding studies, love, life and everything else. I guess there are just times in one's life wherein one is faced with the question, "What now?". I've thought about it earnestly, and decided that perhaps I'm just taking things way to seriously, perhaps I should relax a little bit, and try to take things one step at a time. I know that the wait may belong, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually. Well, it's a start of a new semester and perhaps a new chapter in my rather methodical and boring life, but who knows, some surprises just might be lurking around the corner.
Monday, October 27
Addicted to Ran
If you guys are wondering why I haven't been able to update my blog for a little while, it's because I've spent most of my time playing RAN. I haven't really had the urge to post some new entries because I've been so hooked on the game that I spend hours after hours just playing the wretched game. Actually, I really haven't been able to think of things to write so why bother writing. The fact is I'm still really depressed about my previous entry, and I can't really seem to shake that stressful feeling and that sense of hurt and pain. Maybe that's why I'm trying to distract myself by playing RAN.
Sunday, October 19
Frustrations
Today is by far the most depressing day for me ever since the semester ended. This is not only because of the fact that I havn't seen my dear in almost a week now, but also because today is the day that her ex-boyfriend was supposed to be arriving from the states. I'm not usually the jealous type, but the mere fact that the guy came here just to see her and talk things out with her gives me a really hard time. I know I'm in no position to argue, and neither am I in the position to hold her back if she wants to talk to him, but it just scares me what the outcome of their meeting might be. I knew I should never have given it way to much emotional input, but my relationship with my dear has become so special to me now, that I am willing to do anything just to be able to keep her with me. Though I cannot force her to choose me (since we've only just met) over her ex-boyfriend whom she really cares for but I can try to just be there for her even if all we have left is only friendship. It realy is complicated when you fall for a person who is still in some way attached to her past, you just end up being heart brokened and left with nothing more than just sheer memories of the time you had spent together. Nevertheless, I'm not regretting the decisions I made concerning her, coz' I know for a fact that she loves me too, she just can seem to shake away from her past. I'll contiue to wait, even though it pains me everytime I think about it. I just hope my waiting will not be in vain.
XOXO =(
Saturday, October 18
An Update on Yesterday's Entry
This entry is an update on my most recent entry about a teacher in my school receiving death threats from disgruntled parents. I was able to acquire permission from my teacher (a colleague of the teacher receiving death threats) to use his recent entry on his blog so that I can share in detail what really happened. This entry was posted by The Sandwich Spy, and it goes:
Death Threats for Good Grades
I’m still debating with myself whether this post should get written. “You be careful, too,” my associate dean told me that Tuesday night when I had frantically texted her and our vice president for academic affairs about a fellow teacher’s deadly predicament.
It was almost midnight, but it felt like an emergency. I told them what happened, and our missives went back and forth in our cellphones. They told me something would be done, but my dread was growing. But I could only imagine the kind of terror my teacher-friend—let’s call her Miss Piñero (not her real name)—was going through: it would be fiercer, I knew, and dark as hell. Are people really capable of this these days? I asked myself. The whole thing reeked of third-rate crime drama, the ones you see on late night cable television on some B channel nobody watches. And yet there it was: the message was clear, and the intention was deadly, and only a fool could mistake that as a joke and pretend all was well in the world.
The associate dean had good reasons to tell us to be careful: our world had suddenly become such a murderous place, where, for a price, death was easy and terrorism now acquired a domestic and more familiar face. It struck me how easy it was for Evil to swiftly become so ordinary, and so cheap. We all suddenly learned that night that anyone’s life was nothing more than a bargain of P3,000 tops.
And according to the police, that sum was even a little generous. In the station, my beleaguered fellow teacher got told, pointblank: “Naay uban mopatay ug tawo mas barato pa ana (You can hire people to kill for even less than that),” as if it was the most normal information to impart.
Which, of course, did not calm the nerves of my fellow teacher. Who would after you get told that life was even cheaper than the most-marked down cellphone?
It was already past midnight, and Miss Piñero had gone to the police station to have the incident “blottered,” and the process was taking too slow. Even spelling out her name for the police officer to write down on the form was too excruciatingly slow.
I wasn’t there when she finally passed out. I wasn’t there when she—already suffering from a form of heart condition—was taken to the hospital and admitted. I wasn’t there when she couldn’t speak, when all she could feel was primal fear, of having been violated. Another friend, who was also a fellow teacher, was there, sending many of us missives through cell phones, the midnight crackling with concern.
The next day, I visited her at the hospital, bringing two books she had requested. She looked both weak and strong: the ordeal she bore the night before was clear enough in the way she reclined on her hospital bed—and yet there was also a fierceness in her eyes that said she would not be defeated.
She told me that the night before—after she had seen me in Café Noriter where I was busy checking papers and she was busy tutoring a bunch of Korean girls—she had gone to church for a bit, then went to the department office to get some student papers to mark.
She had decided to walk home, to do some thinking. And that was when she first felt that something was not right. She felt someone was following her in the darkened street, with only a few halogen lamps, standing far apart from each other, providing garish illumination in the lonely early evening stretch that was Hibbard Avenue. Some years ago, she had been accosted on the same street, her bag snatched by some ruffian with all that month’s salary still inside—and so she had some reasons for concern. But she still decided to walk on, until the feeling of being watched was becoming a little too unbearable.
She quickly remembered that that Tuesday was the final deadline for her classes in _________, a special English-writing course designed for the language needs of a particular college. It was a course she liked because it was a challenge for her, and Miss Piñero was the only one in our department who taught it. She is a kindred spirit—and I share with her and some other teachers a standard of learning English that can be very exacting and demanding. Among many student circles, we are basically known as the “terror teachers.” Not because we throw books at students in the classroom, or shout at them, but only because we do not just pay lip service to the “quality education” that Silliman University boasts about. Our mantra is simple: you get a good grade for a good job, and a good job meant requirements submitted on time that passed a certain criteria for excellence. For some students—many of whom mistakenly believe college is something you just have to cruise through—that demand constitutes classroom terrors. We could only sigh and say, “If you want to be spoonfed, go to a diploma mill. Go to a computer college where downpayment is only P1,000 for tuition.”
Miss Piñero is demanding, yes—but observe the way she holds her classes, and you will see that this is one teacher who takes her job seriously. Her comments and suggestions on every single exercise are detailed and helpful, and her dedication extends beyond the ordinary hours of the day. She told me once, “I demand a lot of my students because when I do my work I demand a lot of myself as well.” We used to joke—our heads shaking in commiseration at the same time—that it was almost unbelievable to have students who would submit a paper clearly copy-pasted from the Internet (including hyperlinks printed in blue), and then complain about getting an F. “I submitted, didn’t I?” they would say. And you have to be gentle in reminding them, “Yes, but we grade you for the quality of your work, not for the act of submission.” Miss Piñero had many students like that. In one particular class, she had constant repeaters who could never seem to get it right. One time, Miss Piñero found the tires of her car punctured clean through by a nail—something clearly done deliberately. Later, she would get the following text message that was meant to taunt her: “So, ma’am, dili na ka kalarga, sa? (Ma’am, just look at the way you can no longer drive.)” She shrugged that message away and went on with her life.
This time, last Tuesday night, it was different. She felt she was being watched. And so she flagged down a tricycle as soon as she could, and arriving home, she found her other cellphone—one meant to receive student messages for instant consultation about class work—vibrating with a new message. Unedited, it read: “we parents decided 2 contrbute 4 u, pls mam kalas na au og mccge ka pnghagbong estudynte or dli imu e.inc, ayw hagbonga o e.inc miski usa sa mga studnts nmu rn, wla me m.himu kung dli mo.amot pra m.wla ka, ur lf only cost 3thou, ma.apil pa gd imu fmly. Mas gas2 pa mn gd p.eskwla kysa pagpatay tawo rn.”
An hour later, another message came: “Try to fail any1 of ur studnts, wer not joking. we just warn u 4 u to be prepared. Also kip quiet, mblis kumalat balita, bka mapa.aga buhay mo nd ur fmly.”
Another hour passed, and the last message came: “By da way, gve ur studnts at least 2.0 in.ordr to pass. Ur vry lucky, we stil gve u a chnce, f u mde a mistake, wer vry sori. Wer on povrty now, got nothn 2 do.”
I will string the death threat in one go, edited this time: “We parents have decided to contribute for somebody to assassinate you. It will only cost us P3,000 for somebody to kill you and your family. We will spend more in tuition if you continue to fail students or give them an INC (incomplete). Do not fail any one of your students. We’re not joking. We just want you to be prepared. Also, keep this quiet because news travels fast, and you will only be inviting death a little early. Give all your students a 2.0 in order to pass. You’re very lucky that we’re giving you this chance. If you make a mistake, we’re very sorry. We’re poor and there is nothing else we can do.”
The tone of the message was clearly serious. That the parts were sent an hour apart meant this was not just some random ravings of a deadline-pressed individual: this was a murderous mind in perfect calculation. It could be a false note. But it could also be true.
It made me mad.
But my fellow teacher, lying on her hospital bed, was philosophical about it: “I can understand their desperation. It is not easy to send somebody to school, only to be rewarded with one failing mark after another. Life is getting hard, and tuitions are getting harder to pay. When you’re desperate, you do whatever you can—even if you have to sink low to get what you want.”
“But poverty doesn’t excuse them to send you death threats like this!” I said. Is getting the grade you want enough in exchange for your soul? I wondered.
Miss Piñero could only smile sadly. Then she said, “What saddens me is that there is only one way to get a good grade without having to kill someone. And that is to study hard. Is studying too much to ask for these days?”
In an age of instant gratification, I guess it is.
And when I left Miss Piñero to go home, I thought that the classroom is largely a misunderstood place. It should be a place of academic give-and-take. A good teacher starts by giving his or her all—although sometimes, bad teachers can happen. But all that perfect classroom dynamics come to naught when students themselves don’t meet the teacher halfway by showing at least a little enthusiasm, or a little effort to learn something. I remember Miss Piñero once telling me, “I had this student who wrote a paper, and he misspelled this particular word. I encircled it, and noted: ‘Check spelling.’ In the next revision, the word remained misspelled. I encircled it again, and noted: ‘Please check spelling.’ And in the very next revision, the word still remained misspelled. This time, I had to check the dictionary to see if it was I who was wrong.” She wasn’t wrong.
The poet Paul Engle used to say, “Even the best teachers can’t make hair grow out of a billiard ball.” It explains a lot of things.
But what if the billiard ball demands to get a passing grade of 2.0, or else will murder you for it? It now becomes a story of how low this society has become.
Before I left the hospital, I told my fellow teacher I was mad. “I want to write about this,” I said. “But I’m also afraid of these morons’ threats. They want you to keep quiet.”
She looked at me and said, “If I keep quiet, they win. I want you to write about this. That way, they know they’re being watched. That way, we tell the world we’re not cowards.” That way, she said, we stood on the principle that quality and standards must not be mocked and be compromised, even with the deadly promise of bullets.
And that is why I’m writing this. I remember something Edmund Burke once wrote: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” I feel this is true for this given moment of crisis. And at least, by God, I know I’m doing something.
It was almost midnight, but it felt like an emergency. I told them what happened, and our missives went back and forth in our cellphones. They told me something would be done, but my dread was growing. But I could only imagine the kind of terror my teacher-friend—let’s call her Miss Piñero (not her real name)—was going through: it would be fiercer, I knew, and dark as hell. Are people really capable of this these days? I asked myself. The whole thing reeked of third-rate crime drama, the ones you see on late night cable television on some B channel nobody watches. And yet there it was: the message was clear, and the intention was deadly, and only a fool could mistake that as a joke and pretend all was well in the world.
The associate dean had good reasons to tell us to be careful: our world had suddenly become such a murderous place, where, for a price, death was easy and terrorism now acquired a domestic and more familiar face. It struck me how easy it was for Evil to swiftly become so ordinary, and so cheap. We all suddenly learned that night that anyone’s life was nothing more than a bargain of P3,000 tops.
And according to the police, that sum was even a little generous. In the station, my beleaguered fellow teacher got told, pointblank: “Naay uban mopatay ug tawo mas barato pa ana (You can hire people to kill for even less than that),” as if it was the most normal information to impart.
Which, of course, did not calm the nerves of my fellow teacher. Who would after you get told that life was even cheaper than the most-marked down cellphone?
It was already past midnight, and Miss Piñero had gone to the police station to have the incident “blottered,” and the process was taking too slow. Even spelling out her name for the police officer to write down on the form was too excruciatingly slow.
I wasn’t there when she finally passed out. I wasn’t there when she—already suffering from a form of heart condition—was taken to the hospital and admitted. I wasn’t there when she couldn’t speak, when all she could feel was primal fear, of having been violated. Another friend, who was also a fellow teacher, was there, sending many of us missives through cell phones, the midnight crackling with concern.
The next day, I visited her at the hospital, bringing two books she had requested. She looked both weak and strong: the ordeal she bore the night before was clear enough in the way she reclined on her hospital bed—and yet there was also a fierceness in her eyes that said she would not be defeated.
She told me that the night before—after she had seen me in Café Noriter where I was busy checking papers and she was busy tutoring a bunch of Korean girls—she had gone to church for a bit, then went to the department office to get some student papers to mark.
She had decided to walk home, to do some thinking. And that was when she first felt that something was not right. She felt someone was following her in the darkened street, with only a few halogen lamps, standing far apart from each other, providing garish illumination in the lonely early evening stretch that was Hibbard Avenue. Some years ago, she had been accosted on the same street, her bag snatched by some ruffian with all that month’s salary still inside—and so she had some reasons for concern. But she still decided to walk on, until the feeling of being watched was becoming a little too unbearable.
She quickly remembered that that Tuesday was the final deadline for her classes in _________, a special English-writing course designed for the language needs of a particular college. It was a course she liked because it was a challenge for her, and Miss Piñero was the only one in our department who taught it. She is a kindred spirit—and I share with her and some other teachers a standard of learning English that can be very exacting and demanding. Among many student circles, we are basically known as the “terror teachers.” Not because we throw books at students in the classroom, or shout at them, but only because we do not just pay lip service to the “quality education” that Silliman University boasts about. Our mantra is simple: you get a good grade for a good job, and a good job meant requirements submitted on time that passed a certain criteria for excellence. For some students—many of whom mistakenly believe college is something you just have to cruise through—that demand constitutes classroom terrors. We could only sigh and say, “If you want to be spoonfed, go to a diploma mill. Go to a computer college where downpayment is only P1,000 for tuition.”
Miss Piñero is demanding, yes—but observe the way she holds her classes, and you will see that this is one teacher who takes her job seriously. Her comments and suggestions on every single exercise are detailed and helpful, and her dedication extends beyond the ordinary hours of the day. She told me once, “I demand a lot of my students because when I do my work I demand a lot of myself as well.” We used to joke—our heads shaking in commiseration at the same time—that it was almost unbelievable to have students who would submit a paper clearly copy-pasted from the Internet (including hyperlinks printed in blue), and then complain about getting an F. “I submitted, didn’t I?” they would say. And you have to be gentle in reminding them, “Yes, but we grade you for the quality of your work, not for the act of submission.” Miss Piñero had many students like that. In one particular class, she had constant repeaters who could never seem to get it right. One time, Miss Piñero found the tires of her car punctured clean through by a nail—something clearly done deliberately. Later, she would get the following text message that was meant to taunt her: “So, ma’am, dili na ka kalarga, sa? (Ma’am, just look at the way you can no longer drive.)” She shrugged that message away and went on with her life.
This time, last Tuesday night, it was different. She felt she was being watched. And so she flagged down a tricycle as soon as she could, and arriving home, she found her other cellphone—one meant to receive student messages for instant consultation about class work—vibrating with a new message. Unedited, it read: “we parents decided 2 contrbute 4 u, pls mam kalas na au og mccge ka pnghagbong estudynte or dli imu e.inc, ayw hagbonga o e.inc miski usa sa mga studnts nmu rn, wla me m.himu kung dli mo.amot pra m.wla ka, ur lf only cost 3thou, ma.apil pa gd imu fmly. Mas gas2 pa mn gd p.eskwla kysa pagpatay tawo rn.”
An hour later, another message came: “Try to fail any1 of ur studnts, wer not joking. we just warn u 4 u to be prepared. Also kip quiet, mblis kumalat balita, bka mapa.aga buhay mo nd ur fmly.”
Another hour passed, and the last message came: “By da way, gve ur studnts at least 2.0 in.ordr to pass. Ur vry lucky, we stil gve u a chnce, f u mde a mistake, wer vry sori. Wer on povrty now, got nothn 2 do.”
I will string the death threat in one go, edited this time: “We parents have decided to contribute for somebody to assassinate you. It will only cost us P3,000 for somebody to kill you and your family. We will spend more in tuition if you continue to fail students or give them an INC (incomplete). Do not fail any one of your students. We’re not joking. We just want you to be prepared. Also, keep this quiet because news travels fast, and you will only be inviting death a little early. Give all your students a 2.0 in order to pass. You’re very lucky that we’re giving you this chance. If you make a mistake, we’re very sorry. We’re poor and there is nothing else we can do.”
The tone of the message was clearly serious. That the parts were sent an hour apart meant this was not just some random ravings of a deadline-pressed individual: this was a murderous mind in perfect calculation. It could be a false note. But it could also be true.
It made me mad.
But my fellow teacher, lying on her hospital bed, was philosophical about it: “I can understand their desperation. It is not easy to send somebody to school, only to be rewarded with one failing mark after another. Life is getting hard, and tuitions are getting harder to pay. When you’re desperate, you do whatever you can—even if you have to sink low to get what you want.”
“But poverty doesn’t excuse them to send you death threats like this!” I said. Is getting the grade you want enough in exchange for your soul? I wondered.
Miss Piñero could only smile sadly. Then she said, “What saddens me is that there is only one way to get a good grade without having to kill someone. And that is to study hard. Is studying too much to ask for these days?”
In an age of instant gratification, I guess it is.
And when I left Miss Piñero to go home, I thought that the classroom is largely a misunderstood place. It should be a place of academic give-and-take. A good teacher starts by giving his or her all—although sometimes, bad teachers can happen. But all that perfect classroom dynamics come to naught when students themselves don’t meet the teacher halfway by showing at least a little enthusiasm, or a little effort to learn something. I remember Miss Piñero once telling me, “I had this student who wrote a paper, and he misspelled this particular word. I encircled it, and noted: ‘Check spelling.’ In the next revision, the word remained misspelled. I encircled it again, and noted: ‘Please check spelling.’ And in the very next revision, the word still remained misspelled. This time, I had to check the dictionary to see if it was I who was wrong.” She wasn’t wrong.
The poet Paul Engle used to say, “Even the best teachers can’t make hair grow out of a billiard ball.” It explains a lot of things.
But what if the billiard ball demands to get a passing grade of 2.0, or else will murder you for it? It now becomes a story of how low this society has become.
Before I left the hospital, I told my fellow teacher I was mad. “I want to write about this,” I said. “But I’m also afraid of these morons’ threats. They want you to keep quiet.”
She looked at me and said, “If I keep quiet, they win. I want you to write about this. That way, they know they’re being watched. That way, we tell the world we’re not cowards.” That way, she said, we stood on the principle that quality and standards must not be mocked and be compromised, even with the deadly promise of bullets.
And that is why I’m writing this. I remember something Edmund Burke once wrote: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” I feel this is true for this given moment of crisis. And at least, by God, I know I’m doing something.
Friday, October 17
Sillimanians at Their Worst
Nobody is safe, one could take your life just for the price of a beat-up old cellphone.
That is what I learned upon reading the recent entry on my teacher's blog. Apparently a fellow teacher had been receiving death threats just because that teacher always gives students an F or an INC. The sad part about it, I learned upon reading, is that the threats came from the parents. Is this what our society has become? Has crisis really gone through these parents heads that they are willing to resort to violence? And for what? Just so their sons or daughters could have a grade? Are these parents really that desperate? For one thing, if their sons or daughters don't perform well in school, well it's the fault of their stupid and moronic sons and daughters. Why blame it all on the teachers? Are these parents as stupid as their children? Their so-called excuse for hiring someone to supposedly kill the teacher was that it was much cheaper to pay an assassin than to pay the tuition fee. Well, tell that to my parents, who have been struggling hard as they can to pay for my education. I've had setbacks as a student, with grades that were more letters than numbers, but that didn't force my parents to act the way these parents acted. I believe that these people lack character, and that they are opportunistic dumb assess who are willing to hurt someone just to let their children pass. What they don't realize is that these acts don't help their children, but rather these acts ruin them. I mean, let's say the teacher decides to agree and give the students a high grade, the students pass, but did they really? As a student myself, I believe that one passes a subject if one was able to understand it completely and was able to comply with the requirements of that subject. From the looks of things, I'm confident in saying that these students don't even know squat. They're the ones that'll suffer in the long run, and that's what the parents fail to realize.
To think that this incident happened in my school is really saddening. Sillimanians pride themselves with being civilized and educated, but is this the behavior of a supposedly civilized and educated person? I know that ranting about this would definitely put me in a dangerous situation with these desperate parents, but when morality and the reputation of the school are at stake, I don't want to keep quiet and turn a blind eye.
To think that this incident happened in my school is really saddening. Sillimanians pride themselves with being civilized and educated, but is this the behavior of a supposedly civilized and educated person? I know that ranting about this would definitely put me in a dangerous situation with these desperate parents, but when morality and the reputation of the school are at stake, I don't want to keep quiet and turn a blind eye.
Thursday, October 16
Scared
Today is the schedule for my mom's eye operation, and I'm scared sh*tless at what might be the outcome. The reason why my mom has to have an eye operation is because she has cataract (I'm not exactly sure if this is the correct spelling). She already had an operation on her right eye a few years ago, but it didn't go quite well, and the result was she totally lost sight with her right eye. Now when she went to her doctor (a new one because the first that operated her was wack), the doctor said that now her left eye has cataract and needs to be treated as soon as possible. I just hope that the operation will be successful, so that my mom doesn't have to be worried so much. I'm praying as hard as I can for a positive outcome.
XOXO =)
Wednesday, October 15
To Be A Rebound Guy
It's tough, being a rebound guy and all, but I'm not complaining. It's just that sometimes, you can't help to feel jealous about her past. There's also that feeling of fear, now that her past is coming back for her. I just wish that I can take whatever decision she's going to make. I know it's gonna be hard, but I just have to be strong and have faith.
XOXO = (
Tuesday, October 14
Hunger
I'm starving, but I don't want to go home yet. It's this addiction to TV sitcoms, I can't seem to fight the urge to watch my favorite sitcoms on the internet. Argghhh!!
Pushing Daisies
A new addiction. I've included it on the roster of "my most watched TV shoes on the internet". It's a fun and heartwarming story, though it deals with dead people a lot. I'm not gonna give in more details as to NOT be spoiler. Hehe! If you guys want to know more about the series, I suggest you watch it yourselves. Here's the link: http://www.watchtvsitcoms.com/pushingdaisies.php
Hope you guys enjoy watching!
XOXO =)
Hope you guys enjoy watching!
XOXO =)
Addicted to Need For Speed
Can't get over it. I'm so soooo into the Need For Speed craze. I've finished almost all of the Need For Speed versions. From Need For Speed 1 to Need For Speed Most Wanted. I really love that adrenaline rush one feels when playing the game. Now I'm currently enjoying the installment which is Need For Speed Carbon. After this, I have my sights on the next installment of the game, which is Need For Speed Pro Street.
Sino Ba Talaga si Bob Ong
Hello again guys! It's been quite a while since I last scribbled an entry on this blog, so I wanna make up for lost time (ows?). I recently finished reading two of Bob Ong's books, ABNKKBSNPLAko?! and Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro ang mga Pilipino (It's obvious I love reading Philippine literature). These are the first two books in which Bob Ong showed his talent and outrageous humor as a writer. An average Filipino can really relate to his brand of humor and his style of writing. But more than his wacky sense of humor, Bob Ong shares to us another thing in his books. He gives us a glimpse at the harsh reality that is in our country today. In his first book, ABNKKBSNPLAko?!, he takes his readers on a journey, back to his schoolboy days. What's fun about it is that if you're a true-blue Filipino and was fortunate (yeah right!) enough to study here in the country in your elementary and high school days, you'd easily relate to what he talks about in the story. But don't think that those who weren't able to study here can't relate to what he's talking about, because the stories that are in the book reflect the things that are happening in our educational system, and basically those who weren't able to experience first hand how it is to be a student in one of the schools here in the country would really learn much about how our educational (idiot-cational) system works. In his second book, Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro ang mga Pilipino, Bob Ong takes his storytelling a notch higher. In this book, he talks about, in a conscious manner, what most writers would only the talk about sub-consciously. He talks about the Philippine economy, governance, and society as a whole in a way that is blunt yet highly entertaining. Though some parts of the book were taken from his website (it's non-operational now) Bobongpinoy.com, you can easily understand the central point of the book because he easily weaves these ideas and opinions together to form a sort of eye opener for anyone who ever reads the book. I wish everyone can have a chance to read it, because it's really a good book to read for all of us who point with our lips, eat with our bare hands, has a "tabo" in our bathrooms, says "boose" for bus, eat underdeveloped duck eggs (commonly called balut), and call ourselves Filipino. So what are you guys waiting for? Grab a copy of these books at a bookstore near you! Hehe!
XOXO =)
Thursday, October 9
Small Circles Indeed
I just finished reading F. H. Batacan's Smaller and Smaller Circles, and I must say, it is a book that most of us can be proud of. The story setting was cool, the protagonists unconventional, and the overall pacing was fast and exciting. What's also most interesting about it is that it is set in the most unlikely of all places that a serial killer would be lurking in, the very infamous Payatas Dumpsite. You'd be surprised how the author was able to capture the Western style of writing suspense thrillers involving serial killers and forensics yet still retaining a sense of Filipino style of writing. The characters in some parts of the story even spoke in French, which just proves the high level of intelligence the writer has, which would also prove that our new generation of writers have truly evolved and that we are on the verge of new literary ventures. I just hope that in time we can write our own story in the form of CyberPunk. If you don't know what that is, try reading Ghost in the Shell. Well, I guess that's all I can say, atleast for now. I'm still trying to finish other literary works that were created by our very own breed of Filipino writers (Budjette Tan's Trese and Arnold Arre's Ang Mundo ni Andong Agimat). I'm also currently looking for a copy of Arre's Mythology Class and After Eden. So I guess I'll end this post here, and I'll probably be back after I finish reading. 'Till next we scribble.
XOXO =)
XOXO =)
Monday, October 6
Finals
Sorry if I havn't been able to update this blog lately, I've been very very busy with school. What with this week being our finals week, most of us are already stressed out with all the requirements and projects that we need to finish, deadlines we have to meet, and exams we have to study for. What's really getting to my nerves is that our teachers are no where to be found when I want to ask a question. They're the ones that are supposed to help us out right? But most of my teachers become AWOL during the week before finals. It's one of the things that keep my stress levels up. Well, I'd love to do more whining and complaining, but I have this project for Digital Design that I have to finish, curse you JUNGLE STALKER! 'Till next we scribble.
XOXO =)
XOXO =)
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