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Tuesday, October 06, 2009

sur l'Anglais. auf Englisch. on English.

one of my weaknesses is expressing myself in English. verbally. 

perhaps it can be attributed to my lack of social skill. or anything anthropological. a deficiency I must have acquired after i mushroomed into this world, and derailed a certain aspect of my development.

they say that personal growth is complemented by his/her environs. whatever the society would rear into who you become, it still deserts a minor part of it. however as i trudge on my comfort zone as if it is the 38th Parallel, the dichotomy between my ability to interact and my verbally-limited vocabulary somehow wades on such scarcity. 

what was surprising, in spite of all, was that people see me as rather different. kind of discerning, actually. well, I would probably attest that as being a Filipino in a foreign territory gives you a minute sense of diversity. a racial minority whose percentage rarely equals, as the Beatles would have put it, "the holes to fill the Albert Hall". 

i remember a particular instance in college, more than a decade back. one of my major communications course required us to prepare an oral analysis of what our topic was at that point (what that specific topic was, i could not recall). the professor made us a deal: whoever wanted to go first, can throw the bricks and leave. as simple as that. make yourself heard, get a grade (a guaranteed passing one, he said), and take your early break. as each student stood up, depleted the can. i was aware of the need. but dire, it was not. so i took my time.

a highschool friend once said, "if you want to speak/talk English, you have to think English". i know it's easy for someone to say, especially if their household vernacular does not stray into the pages of a Balagtas novel nor an issue of Funny Komiks. i was somewhat astonished to discover that my preference for a college major settled on a subject that would entail a viva voce ability in that particular language. 

but as far as scribbling my thoughts on paper, i guess the rhetoric is almost, well, apparent. although, i admit that occasionally i am at difficulty in avoiding grammatical solecisms. but as what i had written before, it is the process that makes it all fun. nonetheless, to be understood is perhaps the ultimate objective. and one does not have to employ an ostentatious command of the language for him to be able to convey the message. 


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latest musing of Etchie at 12:58 0 comments

Thursday, August 14, 2008

stuck.

Rommel recently emailed me a story he wrote. He said he wanted me to read it and comment on it, constructively---grammatical and logical, he added. 

It would be his response to a call for submission for crime fiction a Philippine publication had quietly announced a few months ago. While Rommel's story is sitting simmering in my harddrive, I still have not started on my own. Ideas flew and left, and plots were buried in the dark recesses of my brain, without the hope of getting exhumed.

Such unfortunate fate of my urges to write had been completely overwhelmed by a reciprocal desire of my system to take advantage of any intervals to rest. I have not been able to spew words on paper for months now, creating a really huge void on my writing.

For some reason, this blog also suffered a similar fate. Three months of inactivity, while the constant desire for fiction, unheeded. Abandoned. Journal posts scrounged unfortunate, so far the only thing I achieved was a short film review that I didn't find any mental nutrition. It was, as I would admit, an attempt at nothing. Just to see if I can still write.

Gone were the days, I guess.

And I'm stuck.

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latest musing of Etchie at 04:31 2 comments

Friday, October 26, 2007

the others

i have a really weird feeling that something's amiss.

not because my tummy's stuffed with glucose-fest funnel cake that i overindulged earlier when we went to a parish carnival. but with metaphysical manifestations that Tobe Hooper would gladly jump at the gun if given an opportunity.

i might be wrong then--the mind's eye is bigger than it seems, they say. i don't know if it will suffice and silence the foreseeable deluge of qualms, but here are some incontrovertible facts from personal experience:

1. last night as I was working on the Panic in the Streets review that I posted at the review site, i sensed a pair of lurking eyes were staring at me---through the dim sliding door with the blind shutters pulled. although i am quite skeptical at the existence of some supernatural phenomena (other than, probably, believing Elvis is dead is a dead giveaway), it somehow made me think otherwise...

2. almost two weeks ago, i heard some heavy footsteps treading upstairs when nobody was even there (the wifey and the kids did their bimonthly groceries). i was not frightened of the fact that i might be hearing the reverberations of an otherworldly being, but the thought that someone might have had the audacity to scale the walls outside and into an open window of an upstairs bedroom. i checked every nook and cranny of our tiny abode (even thought of pulling down the attic covering just to be sure), but didn't find anything nor anyone.

3. the wifey had several encounters, though it would be a mouthful to list them here. thankfully, the kids are still oblivious of the things that go bump in the night (or in our case, even in daylight).

4. a turned-off AV Receiver that instantaneously went on with the remote control inside the built-in storage of the recliner sofa. i tried to come up with rational explanations for the occurence, but at the end i had to succumb to the obvious truth that we are not alone.

i can be a little uneasy, but as long as they keep themselves out of the picture (at least, visually that is), we'll be practicing whatever's left of the sanity and tolerance we still have.

maybe then it's just a Boo! Happy Halloween thing.

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latest musing of Etchie at 12:11 0 comments

Thursday, October 04, 2007

disparate home fries

okay.

so i'm not jumping into the racist slur brouhaha of Desperate Housewives, though I'd just like to point out the flurry of mixed reactions that came from Filipinos both in the native land and overseas.

first of all, i don't watch the show. for no particular reason, i just don't. well, i did adore teri hatcher when she was doing those string-strapped calisthenics backriding with dean cain. but aside from that, nothing can pull me to primetime boobtube except for Heroes and, maybe, According to Jim.

secondly, i'm not a modern day patriot who would dive headfirst into a cesspool of something worse than a hurled excrement. but I did march into Roxas Boulevard during the Independence Centennial, and somehow believed that we, Filipinos, are feigned nationalists--probably because our unity comes when needed, not because we are united to begin with.

anyway, the issue with the dialogue uttered at Desperate Houseives was, in my belief, a discriminating remark/comment against the Philippines, or collectively, the Filipino people. there was no question of its racist implications, though a lot of people, some Filipinos thought that it was a common blunder that should be taken lightly. it is not. it is tantamount to labelling Blacks as niggers as well as a modern day Kristallnacht for the Jews.

it is not a question of the capacity of Filipino medical professionals, but a question of the Filipinos in general: who are we as people that we are relegated as a supposed punchline to a tv show? we do commit mistakes, grave or not, but we don't deny that. i think that particular line maligned the country more than anything else. the petition that came with it was necessary, but the call to boycott was excessive. overkill, ika nga.

sometimes, i don't know how people react. the issue with Malu Fernandez was total condemnation. probably because Fernandez turned out to be a Filipino herself and the article crossed our boundaries of tolerance. now i ask why should we take this new incident as merely a fleeting instance? why shouldn't this snap our patriotic sanities and react the other way around? maybe some of us think that knowing the facts makes it okay for a person to throw derogatory statements against somebody.

now, so what do we do? nothing, i guess. ABC Network apologized anyway. but that's a good start. i believe that it is imperative for writers (not just tv shows, but every writer) should not create discriminating remarks or comments or dialogues even on the pretext of humor. there is still the moral and an ethical factor that exist on creative liberties.

we learned lessons in the end, but we will not see the finality of this. the complaints will be continuous. the only thing that we managed to reap out of this was the pitiful reality that we are not as united as we initially thought we are.

but then...

maybe, i would still be proud to wave my country's flag at them...



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latest musing of Etchie at 20:09 0 comments

Thursday, September 06, 2007

holy crap, batman! i'm losing weight!

yeah, yeah.

losing six pounds was what i could consider a halfbaked achievement.

and ain't it sweet?! haha.

to think that i don't workout my indulgence to anything palatable. and my idea of an exercise normally consists of finger-stretching on a round of nba live or remote-control-button-pushing. needless to say, my obesity counter is going full blast on the body mass scale.

but let's just say that life sometimes works miracles.

like a sleight of hand that pulls rabbits out of baseball caps. or a finger-flicker that tips nickels for quarters. i don't know.





i am merely amazed at how i managed to shed off fats while i munch on bacon strips.

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latest musing of Etchie at 00:01 0 comments

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

fission

---


"As the bomb fell over Hiroshima and exploded, we saw an entire city disappear. I wrote in my log the words: "My God, what have we done?" - Captain Robert Lewis. B-29 The Enola Gay, August 6, 1945

yesterday was my birthday.

sixty-two years ago, a city on the island of honshu in japan was devastated by a powerful weapon known to man. hiroshima temporarily ceased to exist. hirohito threw the towel. and the second world war saw the finality of hostilities aboard the Missouri. the atomic age started. the weapons race commenced. the Cold War froze.

my existence in this universe was brought not by splitting of atoms. but by a union of cells. thirty-four years later when peace was feigned, disguised by the political machinations of the West and the East. i was born because the a different "explosion" was detonated (as what Rommel jokingly coined as one). hehe.

now, i'm twenty-eight. and it pains me to think of the irony of history.




note: maybe one day, i'll get the chance to see hiroshima and nagasaki up close.

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latest musing of Etchie at 22:37 0 comments

Monday, August 06, 2007

28 years later...

nah.





let's get this day done and over with.



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latest musing of Etchie at 07:28 0 comments

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

giving head.

(no, it's not what you think. the subliminality is obvious, but i take credit for coming up with ludicruously-composed title posts. haha).

so then. let's get on with it.

i've been ruminating of putting up a personal homepage. one that i'll probably see as an outlet of sort. that in my current state of between-jobs, would be exceedingly productive than bumming around. the culture freak has hit the brick wall and the dwindling supply is in imminent peril of depletion.

to compensate, is my attempt at self-worth.

so far, i'm dreamweaver-less. and this is the only thing that somehow, managed to get through:



it's a tentative header. i might try to upload a few more if ideas come up. i'll be particularly elated if you guys could chip in. suggestions. violent reactions. recommendations. and stuffs that make light bulbs flicker are always appreciated...



...and oh. i still don't smoke. it's bad for my health.

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latest musing of Etchie at 11:21 0 comments

Thursday, July 19, 2007

withdrawal

empty billfold accounts for luho deprivation.

the suffering is unbearable to think. the absence of brainfood is excruciating enough. like a migraine that continues to throb. it's a void that you'd scamper for something to plug it with.

ever since i made the bungee-less jump, i've been penny-pinching. yes sir. expenses limit to what's important and what's needed. fortunately, i managed to scrimp in little literature to the list.

dvd reruns like hell. good thing, however. the tons left plastic-wrapped found liberation.

and the movie blog's recording incomplete reviews. so far. (i'll find ways to finish them but it'll take some time, i guess).




god. i hate it.

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latest musing of Etchie at 08:43 0 comments

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

father's day gifts. atbp....

last sunday was father's day.

and i'm a happy father, at that. hehe. literally.

the kids and the wife. what more to ask?

i woke up around noon to find a starbucks paper bag in tutay's hands. followed by pretty loud yell of happy father's day, daddy!, she handed it to moi.

a new thermal mug, it is. to complement the FedUp ceramic one Dada gave me as a pre-departure gift two years ago.

mei-mei would not let herself be robbed of the limelight by her ate, and with the cute kidspeak claim of "da-di, mei-mei, hafartdey". the tiny fingers pointing to the same gift that tutay gave.

the afternoon and the sundown was their mom's turn.

Coltrane and Koji Suzuki at borders. books and a cd.










and a nightcap to top it off...


* * * * *

today is papa's birthday. it was yesterday, manila-time.

but since i'm twelve hours behind, it is still the 19th of June here.

so, here's greeting the leader of the band a happy birthday!

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latest musing of Etchie at 20:32 2 comments

Sunday, June 03, 2007

bahay kubo...

no, it's a bit grander than that, i'd say.

hell, after weeks of excruciating wait and fears of truncated hope, IT'S OURS!!!

it's official. the deal was closed and the house is ours.









now, we'll traverse the difficult process of moving.

it'll be fun, i know.





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latest musing of Etchie at 19:45 0 comments

Sunday, May 13, 2007

warfreak

a link from Dodo's blog:



What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com


it's unusally ironic that i'm the eternal pacifist.






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latest musing of Etchie at 16:02 0 comments

Saturday, May 05, 2007

bumhood redux

there is a thin line that exists between losing and quitting a job.

the culmination is basically the same, but the how of it is the one that matters.

the constant recurrence of premeditated bumming is a protracted outcome of both, to say the least. nonetheless, there is a degree of self-satisfaction present to those who quit. an inexplicable high. to inculcate the comfort of freedom versus the omnipresence of guilt and depression towards those who lost theirs.

so i made the freefall. aware of the lack of cushions that i should have prepared before the plunge.

technicalities precipitated the loss of contingencies. there were blames and misunderstandings, ultimately i could still manage to prompt some relief.







i'm enjoying myself for the moment. packing up the proper gear for a different level.

it'll be a new battlefield in the future.

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latest musing of Etchie at 01:19 0 comments

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Eccentric. Frivolous. Flexible. Tempestuous. Hyperactive. Thinker. Wanderer. Couch Potato. Lethargic. Insensitive. Repressive. Vain.

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