For the moment :)
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Sunday, 15 February 2009
Think Of Me
Saturday, 14 February 2009
St. Valentine's
Cheers to everyone, and happy birthday to my sister! And to lovely Odette too, hugs on your birthday.
Like any other Valentine's day, I still opt to be alone than crowd myself to the commercialism of a supposed special day.
***On phone conversation with Kokim...
"Won't there be a solution to your problem of not being sociable? Or but, you wouldn't relate yourself to anybody who is way different to your perspective?"
Whatever it may be, I don't have qualm about it.
Sunday, 1 February 2009
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Singaporean Seafood
Our first course is here already. Just check out the place. It's right in front of Shinagawa station.
Begin forwarded message:
From: <YOU>
Date: 2009年1月22日 2:30:18:JST
To: <ME>
Subject: Is there anybody out there...
Your silence is ice
blue void of cold wisper
of sound anticipated
of cracking hope
Silence. I hear words I wish
and all those I fear
Are you hiding in silence?
Are you lost in pain?
Flap your wings, angel
Make the wind roar
of your will to live
Obstinated fighter.
My heart knows no words... I wish you were here to give me that warmth of your embrace, to kiss the tiny pearls falling down my cheeks.
I am still breathing. Although I find the pressures and responsibilities of life nowadays unbearable. I am still swimming in the surface, scaling that wall.
I have dreamt of you. It was so vivid that I could actually feel you. But I woke up from the reality that you were never around. I gasped for air, because I was crying when your image was slowly fading away from me. I walked my way to the fridge and found my half-drunk glass of milk. I didn't want to remember how I feel so alone in that dream. After I went to the loo, I checked my phone and I've got this. From then, it never stopped raining until all I could remember in the morning how heavy my heart was.
I don't think I will ever see you. And I don't think I will ever be with you.
Saturday, 24 January 2009
Friday, 23 January 2009
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Mishka
To Narita
Off to the airport right now...
I need the eye-shut. I only had 4 hours of sleep. I made a cab reservation, so I have to be prim and proper on the time scheduled. Good thing this cab driver is very kind. He gallantly opened and closed the door for me. He even patiently waited for me downstairs, outside his car in a freezing cold, yet calling me through the interphone if I were ready. But nuh, he picked up a croaking voice.
Now he just let me slip to my dreamy world.
Thank you, Katou-san. Wake me up when we're there already.
I need the eye-shut. I only had 4 hours of sleep. I made a cab reservation, so I have to be prim and proper on the time scheduled. Good thing this cab driver is very kind. He gallantly opened and closed the door for me. He even patiently waited for me downstairs, outside his car in a freezing cold, yet calling me through the interphone if I were ready. But nuh, he picked up a croaking voice.
Now he just let me slip to my dreamy world.
Thank you, Katou-san. Wake me up when we're there already.
Saturday, 10 January 2009
Benri
It means convenient in Japanese. And for the people that surround me, it also means 'yours truly'.
There were times that I would like to give up, during those times that I so wished I was blind and deaf. I was on this threshold of fumigating my frustrations toward them. I could hardly breathe that I have become mute, as it has always been. I've had to be a pillar despite my prostrations.
I may be an ant, without nothing but only hard labor to carry on her back, unconspicuous to what seems a busy life they own. I don't bite like an ant though, you still don't have the right to step on me. However I was never blind nor deaf to your inconveniences.
There were times that I would like to give up, during those times that I so wished I was blind and deaf. I was on this threshold of fumigating my frustrations toward them. I could hardly breathe that I have become mute, as it has always been. I've had to be a pillar despite my prostrations.
I may be an ant, without nothing but only hard labor to carry on her back, unconspicuous to what seems a busy life they own. I don't bite like an ant though, you still don't have the right to step on me. However I was never blind nor deaf to your inconveniences.
Friday, 9 January 2009
Frazzled
"All I can do is be me, whoever that is."
私ができることは、自分自身であること。たとえ自分という存在が、どんな人間であろうとも。
Bob Dylan
ボブ・ディラン
Friday, 2 January 2009
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Thursday, 25 December 2008
The Manila Standard Today
First published 6 June 2008
INTEGRATIONS
Maya Baltazar Herrera
Voyage
There are no children here.
This week, I went to a meeting at the UP School of Economics and came away with renewed belief in the value of the UP experience.
If you speak to anyone from UP – student, professor, alumnus - you will get no Latin slogans or apologies about how the school teaches values inspite of its outward materialism. This is not a student population that thinks about basketball games or memorizes school songs. This is not a school that chooses one statement to drill into the minds of its students.
This is not, of course, to say that UP does not care about values. It is that UP, in its own inimitable way, believes that values cannot be force-fed. The statue of the naked man that guards the entrance to the campus in Diliman best represents UP's approach to all education and the respect for students that is the center of its educational philosophy. All who come to this university, regardless of origin, bring themselves naked, carrying nothing but their thirst; like the proverbial empty teacup, making an offering of self, waiting to be filled.
Adults
For many students from private schools, the first lesson that is learned here is that this is a school for adult education. There are no children here, and that is why no parents are allowed either at freshman orientation or during enlistment.
The spirit of the oblation lies not in a mother or a father offering up his child to the world, it is that of the newly adult, freely offering of his self.
I remember quite vividly that moment that drove home how different the UP education continues to be. It was my daughter's first semester in university and she had invited a group of her high school friends to our house. One of them asked a classmate whether she had gotten her parents permission form approved for that weekend's outreach activity. From the UP population around the table came the mock horrified responses of: "Permission? " and "Outreach?"
I thought about it and realized that all of these students were, in fact, legally adults. I thought it interesting that only the UP students appeared to appreciate this fact.
Even more interesting was the "outreach" comment. I think back to my own university years and the last three years that my daughter has been in UP and am certain there is no lack of civic activity. There are medical missions, house building projects, tree planting, community work and barrio work and so on. I realize now that the reaction was not to the activity as much as it was to the use of the word.
One of the most important differences of the UP campus from all the other campuses my children considered going to is that this campus has no walls. Many parents fear this. They are afraid their precious children will not be protected from the ills of society in a campus that is so open to the rest of the world. But UP is open to the world in more ways than just not having the physical walls.
Community
Being in UP means much more than being a student. This campus is enmeshed in a community. This community is made up not only of the transient population of students who go home at the end of each day. It includes the many, many students who lay their heads on dorm pillows every night, enduring time away from families in the firm belief that this campus will bring them closer to their dreams. This community includes the families of faculty and employees who live on campus. It also includes the many people who do not work for the University, but nevertheless work on campus. This community includes the lady who remembers the brand of cigarette you smoke and automatically hands it to you in the morning. It includes the gentleman who remembers you like pepper on your egg sandwich or the one who knows you will dip your fish balls into two of his sauces and patiently waits for you to eat your three sticks before being paid. It includes the woman who saw all her children through college by selling peanuts every day on campus.
To a UP student, the daily heartbeat of the school is never far away from the realities of the country. The word outreach suggests that civic activity is something outside of the normal, something you do once in a while. It must be immensely difficult to think of community as a thing apart when your campus experience brings you face to face with all of the world's realities every day.
Character
All of this probably explains that unmistakable sense of self that you will find from students who come from this campus. Here is a campus where all have the same opportunities to learn. But, also, here is a campus that will give all the same opportunities to fail. There are no guidance counselors who will chase after you because you have been skipping classes. The attitude this university takes is that you must take the initiative – for learning, for seeking help, for realizing you need help.
That is not to say that no help exists. But it is help that is not forced upon you.
This is a university rich in both introspection and conversation. On this campus, the student is constantly exposed to people – faculty, administrators, community members, other students – who care deeply and passionately about the world. The conversations are almost never purely cerebral. A single graph can provoke comments about government policy and its effects on people.
As a result, UP is home to a student population that looks at the world and cares. It is easy to see pictures of protesting students and dismiss it as radicalism. But there are few campuses in this country where students go beyond a passing curiosity about what is happening in the world beyond their own lives. There are even fewer universities where students not only care but also actually believe they have a responsibility to make a difference – not in some hazy future – today.
And that, I believe, is what truly forges character. Character is not molded by speeches or long classes in ethics or theology. Character grows from within. It begins by being handed the keys to your own self and being told you are in charge; you now have power over yourself and your own actions – and with that power, you take on responsibilities.
Each student in this university goes through his own unique voyage of discovery. On this voyage, as he decides what he cares about, what he will fight for and what he will sacrifice, he crafts his own personal values. That is what education is truly about.
First published 6 June 2008
INTEGRATIONS
Maya Baltazar Herrera
Voyage
There are no children here.
This week, I went to a meeting at the UP School of Economics and came away with renewed belief in the value of the UP experience.
If you speak to anyone from UP – student, professor, alumnus - you will get no Latin slogans or apologies about how the school teaches values inspite of its outward materialism. This is not a student population that thinks about basketball games or memorizes school songs. This is not a school that chooses one statement to drill into the minds of its students.
This is not, of course, to say that UP does not care about values. It is that UP, in its own inimitable way, believes that values cannot be force-fed. The statue of the naked man that guards the entrance to the campus in Diliman best represents UP's approach to all education and the respect for students that is the center of its educational philosophy. All who come to this university, regardless of origin, bring themselves naked, carrying nothing but their thirst; like the proverbial empty teacup, making an offering of self, waiting to be filled.
Adults
For many students from private schools, the first lesson that is learned here is that this is a school for adult education. There are no children here, and that is why no parents are allowed either at freshman orientation or during enlistment.
The spirit of the oblation lies not in a mother or a father offering up his child to the world, it is that of the newly adult, freely offering of his self.
I remember quite vividly that moment that drove home how different the UP education continues to be. It was my daughter's first semester in university and she had invited a group of her high school friends to our house. One of them asked a classmate whether she had gotten her parents permission form approved for that weekend's outreach activity. From the UP population around the table came the mock horrified responses of: "Permission? " and "Outreach?"
I thought about it and realized that all of these students were, in fact, legally adults. I thought it interesting that only the UP students appeared to appreciate this fact.
Even more interesting was the "outreach" comment. I think back to my own university years and the last three years that my daughter has been in UP and am certain there is no lack of civic activity. There are medical missions, house building projects, tree planting, community work and barrio work and so on. I realize now that the reaction was not to the activity as much as it was to the use of the word.
One of the most important differences of the UP campus from all the other campuses my children considered going to is that this campus has no walls. Many parents fear this. They are afraid their precious children will not be protected from the ills of society in a campus that is so open to the rest of the world. But UP is open to the world in more ways than just not having the physical walls.
Community
Being in UP means much more than being a student. This campus is enmeshed in a community. This community is made up not only of the transient population of students who go home at the end of each day. It includes the many, many students who lay their heads on dorm pillows every night, enduring time away from families in the firm belief that this campus will bring them closer to their dreams. This community includes the families of faculty and employees who live on campus. It also includes the many people who do not work for the University, but nevertheless work on campus. This community includes the lady who remembers the brand of cigarette you smoke and automatically hands it to you in the morning. It includes the gentleman who remembers you like pepper on your egg sandwich or the one who knows you will dip your fish balls into two of his sauces and patiently waits for you to eat your three sticks before being paid. It includes the woman who saw all her children through college by selling peanuts every day on campus.
To a UP student, the daily heartbeat of the school is never far away from the realities of the country. The word outreach suggests that civic activity is something outside of the normal, something you do once in a while. It must be immensely difficult to think of community as a thing apart when your campus experience brings you face to face with all of the world's realities every day.
Character
All of this probably explains that unmistakable sense of self that you will find from students who come from this campus. Here is a campus where all have the same opportunities to learn. But, also, here is a campus that will give all the same opportunities to fail. There are no guidance counselors who will chase after you because you have been skipping classes. The attitude this university takes is that you must take the initiative – for learning, for seeking help, for realizing you need help.
That is not to say that no help exists. But it is help that is not forced upon you.
This is a university rich in both introspection and conversation. On this campus, the student is constantly exposed to people – faculty, administrators, community members, other students – who care deeply and passionately about the world. The conversations are almost never purely cerebral. A single graph can provoke comments about government policy and its effects on people.
As a result, UP is home to a student population that looks at the world and cares. It is easy to see pictures of protesting students and dismiss it as radicalism. But there are few campuses in this country where students go beyond a passing curiosity about what is happening in the world beyond their own lives. There are even fewer universities where students not only care but also actually believe they have a responsibility to make a difference – not in some hazy future – today.
And that, I believe, is what truly forges character. Character is not molded by speeches or long classes in ethics or theology. Character grows from within. It begins by being handed the keys to your own self and being told you are in charge; you now have power over yourself and your own actions – and with that power, you take on responsibilities.
Each student in this university goes through his own unique voyage of discovery. On this voyage, as he decides what he cares about, what he will fight for and what he will sacrifice, he crafts his own personal values. That is what education is truly about.
Tonight I Can Write The Saddest Lines
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,’The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another. She will be another. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my should is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
~Pablo Neruda
Write, for example,’The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.’
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another. She will be another. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that’s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my should is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
~Pablo Neruda
