Taking the liberty.

I am now taking the liberty to share to you my graduation creative shot — this being my blog and all. Lol.

Cooking for dummies: Instant Italian Pasta

This is another installation of my “Cooking for Dummies” entries. To give you a clearer picture of how my relationship with the kitchen is, take note of this: I took up a semester (not a week or a month, but an entire semester) of cooking class. Yes, it involved grocery lists, grocery shopping, preparatory sessions, actual cooking, baking, etc etc, the works. Anyway, the point is, I did not absorb anything whatsoever (even though I got a 98 in the whole thing). My parents are becoming so desperate, they’d reinforce me by letting me prepare whatever I feel like preparing (like easy dessert) for family gatherings. Some other times, like last weekend, they’d cajole my more skilled friends by saying stuff like, “Your friend Aika doesn’t know how to cook. Maybe you could teach her.” And so they did.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Penni ai Funghi Porcini. It’s instant Italian pasta that is apparently really good and legit. What better way to teach a cooking dummy than to start with instant pasta? Lol. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Trust me. Sanda and Dewa’s dad grew up in Italy and only moved to the Philippines for college. So yes, the man speaks Italian, cooks Italian, eats Italian, acts Italian. And the rest of their household’s kitchen work are full on Italian. To add to that, their mom did study to be a chef. The children (aka Sanda and Dewa) inevitably absorbed almost everything their parents got to offer kitchen-wise. So, this Penni ai Funghi Porcini, IS good — not just basing it on my currently full-ready-to-hurl-can’t-think-anymore tummy, but also on their “expertise” on such food.

They let me pour the powdered mixture of the sauce in some other mixture of seemingly complex measurements of fresh milk and other stuff I just cannot remember anymore. Lol. THEN! They taught me how to make legit garlic bread! I know, I keep using the word “legit”. ‘Cos if it were up to me and my clueless self in the world of pans, I prolly would do some things differently. And end up with fail attempts at garlic bread. I’d tell you in detail as to how their household does it but…. it might be top secret so I’ll just show them to you. Nevertheless, BEST GARLIC BREAD I’VE MADE. EVER.

Imagine all that on special bread. Lol. Then Dewa even cooked us her “special” onion relish, the stuff that went into it are also confidential. I’m telling you, I’m not an onion person but this relish of hers got me eating some of it straight from the pan — as we all did. Ha ha!

They have herbs planted at the front of their apartment here in campus (imagine!) so they got Tommy, their youngest brother, to get pieces of basil as garnish for the cooked meal.

We were all so pleased with the dinner we prepared and we even listened to Jovanotti while eating. Ha ha! I hope my parents get to read this. It’s quite an experience, really. Lol. My friends did follow through!

So right now, yes, I am less of a dummy when it comes to garlic bread and instant italian pasta! Grazie mille mi amici!

Closeness.

Jude: I truly miss you, Aix.

1

There was a man who used to call me Jude. For the simple reason that we somewhat had a common liking to the Beatles’ song, Hey Jude. I think it happened in one of our walks to my apartment in campus. Since our preferred music genres didn’t have an intersection whatsoever, we brought up songs we both might know. Hey Jude was the one that stuck.

2

There is a girl named Jude. Or so she thinks she is. She’d respond to it to one person and one alone, a man who left one of his shirts with her. He probably did it on purpose. Or not, since he claims it to be one of his favorites. Then again at least she had something to wear on days she missed him most — like Valentine’s, the social convention for couples, the excuse to miss someone, the perfect excuse to wear his shirt.

3

There was a girl who used to call me Jude. For the simple reason that she probably thinks I’m hot. The first time I held her hand, she hesitated; said she was just getting out of a sucky relationship. I held her hand anyway. I knew right away. I knew that being with her in the remaining time I had would be worth it. She was cool, he was a loser. But I am cool, or so she thinks I am, so I suppose we suit each other better than the loser I went out with.

4

There is a man named Jude. He’d respond to it only to one writer: the writer of the letter he read at the Chicago airport. Once in a while, when nobody is looking, he’d take a peek at the same letter that is now hidden in one of his drawers. He reads it before he sleeps. The uncertainty of life is his perfect alibi to read it. For the writer gave him the one certainty he will always be glad for: her thinking good of him.

 5

There are two of Jude now, walking side by side in a fancy mall. He in his shirt and shorts, she in her dress. He held her hand while walking and she thought she might pass out at the truth of it. She was happy, he can tell, but she cried for a short while and he thought how painful a sight it was. Why did leaving have to be so bitter sweet?

6

There were two of Jude at breakfast, and a plane ticket to China. His head hurt from the drinking he just capped with some of his friends. She came to get him. He tried to tell her something, and suddenly she was afraid. “No one,” he went while putting a hand on his chest, “no one has reached this in a long time.” She wanted to lean over to his side to kiss him. If only there weren’t any other people in that breakfast place. She felt stupid the moment she uttered, “you’re scaring me.”

7

There were two of Jude in a chatbox and miles of space in between. She called his name, his real name. He asked her what it was she wanted to tell him. But she felt scared and changed the topic altogether. Does he know? She asks herself. Does he know that for every single day since they met, it is him who occupies her mind?

8

There is a girl and a boy, both called Jude. She on one end of the world, he on the other. Now they are a world apart, but they are far way closer than two people seated together.

Idealism coupled with a lot of gut.

What I’ve been wanting to put here are piling up since I’ve been in university for a good 3 weeks already. On my way here in this coffee shop I’m currently at, I was able to catch a glimpse of the field where university graduation ceremonies are held. I saw that they had already installed boundaries to maintain and preserve the grass area for the ceremony, and it made me highly emotional (what’s new). In a few months’ time, if my thesis passes through, I will be on that very same grass to claim a diploma. “Finally,” I said to myself, “finally, it’s happening.”

Apart from excitement, it kinda gets a little scary. Technically speaking, my timeline will begin the moment I step up on that stage to get a piece of paper that signifies my college achievement — this timeline will greatly define the rest of my life. Oh God. I think I just peed in my pants. Lol. “What will you do after graduation, Aix?” has been the common question people have been asking me. Maybe out of innocent curiosity or maybe because it’s the only logical question there is to ask someone who is just waiting for her big march. Either way it freaks the hell out of me.

I only have a couple of choices to get myself into: radio, events organizing, non-government organizations, advertising, design, or to write for a magazine. JUST a couple. As of late, with the recent experiences I’ve exposed myself to, I’m slowly but surely developing this desire to change something — anything. Let me share my eye opener experiences with you.

—- EXPERIENCE 1: A personal interaction with poverty —-

My chinese garter friends.

My best friend and I have been visiting a relocation site in Calauan, Laguna. A good 30 minute jeep and 10 minute tricycle ride to the secluded area from my university, where a good bunch of Filipino families were transferred from Manila. Manila is congested: people find their way there from their own provinces to live wherever there’s space (like under a bridge, beside train tracks, along floodways, etc — once I saw street kids sleeping on the island of some main road my dad and I were driving along). Informal settlers from Paco and Pasig were assisted by NHA (National Housing Association) and ABS-CBN in transferring to Calauan (a 3 hour distance from Manila), where a major housing project awaited them. Good news right? They got their own houses and own lots, right in the smack of a peaceful community. But other living requirements such as livelihood, water, and electricity, are currently still scarce, if not zero.

Poverty has been a constant topic in my course. As much as possible, we were trained to develop a bias for it. And here in the Philippines, poverty is so complex that one would not know where to begin fixing it. Some say, and I agree with this to some extent, that these people (as if they are totally completely different from the rest of us) just need to exploit all possible means for them to be able to provide for themselves. Diskarte, as what others call it. But it hasn’t been as simple as that. Not when you are actually born into the culture where needs are so big and provisions to addressing such needs are so little. When I encouraged some kids to show me their favorite game of all time (chinese garter), I asked one of them what she wanted to be when she grows up. “Nothing,” she said. When my ten year old self would have answered “Doctor.” So how? How do you expect people to rise above their condition when the very simple notion of ambition or dreaming is impeded under the worry of day-to-day survival?

Their questions aren’t in the nature of “what”, “when”, or “where”. Their questions are in the nature of “How”: How do we eat tomorrow? How will my son finish school? How will I pay the 20pesos needed to get some generated electricity in the evening? How do we survive tomorrow? (You may think I’m exaggerating. I wish I was.)

—-EXPERIENCE 2: Somebody ought to know I can’t keep still —-

The All for One, All for Fun crew and kids. Where's Wally mode. Lol (Photo by PJ Enriquez)

Last weekend, I became part of the team building (as research observer) for families with kids who have ADHD, “All for One, All for Fun.” It was organized by my good friend Sanda Lazo, together with the help of the AD/HD Society, Los Banos Camera Club, Photography with a Difference (PWAD), SM, Canon, and Mr. John Chua (one of the ambassadors to Canon). I was assigned to tally all the interactions Mr. Chua had for the day as part of Sanda’s thesis on knowledge management in the event itself. But I was able to take part of some activities (besides eating), and I was able to interact with some of the children who have ADHD (Not to mention Mr. Chua actually cajoled me to try the two-zip thing lol).

I don’t know much about parenting or being a kid with ADHD. But since I am very close to the Lazos, whose youngest brother/son has ADHD,  and I was able to witness and interact with a couple of them more closely, I have to say that everything becomes twice as hard compared to just having normal kids. My eldest sister’s son has been exhibiting symptoms of the said irregularity, and right now, instead of enrolling him to play school (as was planned), he was enrolled to occupational therapy which showed great improvement. That’s just the lighter story. Some kids, especially when parents are in denial or have no idea on what to do, grow up completely enforced with the irregularities of being impulsive in everything.

During the event itself, we encountered a kid who was very difficult. At the end of the activity, he went over to our table (some of the Lazos and I were just talking), grabbed the bag of mentos candies from the middle of the table, and did not stop even if he was told off by Mr. Lazo. The mom and the maid of the kid gave way to every single thing the child wanted, and it was disconcerting in the sense that the kid was already exhibiting signs of brattiness. Lessons on social cues during the crucial points of this child’s formative years are down the drain due to lack of awareness as to how to deal with such kids.

Issues on being different, and how society sees these children, are also part of the story. I wish I could tell you every single story that was shared to me by the Lazos, but maybe we can reserve that for another time. Other than that, these kids are lovable, normal in the sense that they are kids who deserve the same things as other kids, but they need the proper guidance that is fit to their condition.

——

So I guess, with all that, you already have a pretty good idea on what I intend to do after graduation. There has always been a common dilemma among Development Communication graduates of either choosing selling stuff or improving things that matter. As much as selling soap or cereals sound enticing to the pocket, right now, the “behind the scenes” sounds more appealing to me.

I am sounding a little idealistic as of the moment. But the idealistic, coupled with a great deal of gut, gets real stuff done, y’know?

At the graduation shoot: with the girl who gets things done (cos she got a lot of gut lol)

Thoughts from rain.

CLAIRE: “But don’t you think,” I persist, “that it’s better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?”

Leafing through pages and pages of a book while lying in bed in pajamas! Best feeling ever. It rained the whole day today and I had the pleasure of staying in, getting lost in Henry and Claire’s world. I kind of have a feeling that my reading of this came a little late. But s’ok, it’s not like I was ever a fan of being part of any social hype. Yes, even in reading. Hm. To live in bursts of passion.. I wonder how I’ve abused that mindset in the past year. Ha ha! But Claire has a point. I’d rather dissipate into thin air than remain stationary — not to mention to have my mindset boxed in some way. It doesn’t even sound good in Filipino: Pagkakitid ng utak. 

The gory day of commercialism.

Instructions for this piece of humorous art were: 1) print 'em out!, 2) give 'em to your friends! and 3) Lose your friends! lol

Almost every year, I’ve had someone else try to make my Valentine’s day “special”. In an effort to do so, I was brought to fancy dinners or to movies, was given flowers or sometimes, when the person didn’t know me at all, milk chocolates — not dark and without nuts. Well those were fun. In the sense that I got to play dress up and became a master of picking up social cues when needed. I also had a reason to go out, since I was asked and it would be a shame if I were to decline such a romantic invite. Lol. This year was no different in the getting-invited department. I had been asked out; for a couple of reasons I cannot seem to wrap my head around. And this year, for every invite, I gave a very unorthodox answer of “it’s nothing more than a social convention. I refuse to conform.” BAM! I think I just killed it. Valentine’s day, I mean.

I’m not a cynic, God no. But if I were to be put through another bunch of cheesy lines, stiff dinners, forced smiles, expectations that ruin the promise of the day, awkward evenings of no pure laughter whatsoever [linked back to stiff dinners] in the attempt to make the day “special”, I might have to hang myself. I might have to shoot myself. I might have to throw myself over some cliff. Ha ha!

Have I established what I intend to establish here? All I’m saying is that the “waiting” or the warranted “forever alone” shouldn’t feel so bad on the event of this gory day full of cut out paper hearts. The day had been commercialized to distracting people from what it’s about. So you be bummed when there are no flowers, no long letters, no fancy dinner, no cheesy movies, etc. When in fact, it rooted back to nothing fancy at all. It was more of St. Valentine’s heroic act of marrying roman couples despite it being banned by the state, making him almost a criminal (more on this in Google.com — Wikipedia would do too lol). There was only the decision coupled with a lot of guts, and the desire to be together for as long as their fragile human bodies would allow them. It was an act to save the purest form of love; that of which commits and binds itself to living with and digesting all the quirks of just one person for the rest of one’s life. Sounds like a lot of work but it’s legit and it does happen, I promise.

No one is sick enough to marry me yet (thank God for that), so I’ll be spending this year’s Valentine’s with my best friends, and in the evening, with a book and a cup of joe. *wink*

P.S. I beg of you. Celebrate it for love. This is like Christmas part two, only instead of candy canes hung on department store windows, you got roses and huge ass glittery hearts.

Time zones and poetic memories.

“I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.” [Audrey Niffenegger]

I am a day ahead and he is a day behind. Our talks happen between my first sip of coffee for the day and his last online check before sleep. I wake up to each new day with the goal to make myself busy and tired enough until bed time. I treat each second, each minute, and each hour of every day as a step closer to seeing him again. Can I be any more ridiculous? Probably. I have never had my feet planted on this unfamiliar ground where time ticks in a steady pace. But here, I unexplicably feel safe and I cannot fathom wanting to be anywhere else. Right here where there is liberty in choosing to be lonely, choosing to be self-sustaining until only God knows when. I am beginning to think that maybe this is my poetic memory talking to me. Have I finally come across someone who could [or already had] made every other encounter in my life pale in comparison to that of ours?

I dreamt of capes last night.

Notice the text seeping through from the back. Definitely on scratch paper.

This morning, I picked up my pen and drew on pieces of scratch paper that were stuffed in one of my drawers. Used my writing pen as all of my tech pens had already dried out. Haven’t been able to do this in so long. No perspectives, no sketches, no new ideas put on paper in this manner. Although this one was really nothing more than a product of my curiosity on “capes”. Lol.

To be honest, it felt so good signing this way again

Reality bit me.

8 hours of sleep. FINALLY. After finishing my thesis draft this morning, I took my much awaited rest, woke up at 7pm, ate cereals, and watched this:

Reality Bites, 1994. The whole movie got me thinking of how ready I am for the “real world”. For majority of my whole life, I feel like I’ve been living in a bubble. Secured in my parents’ care, full of my siblings’ love, a teddy bear I’ve had since grade three, locked in the world of writers through my stash of books, volumes and volumes of diaries I’ve documented my life in.. the list could go on forever.

There was a point in my life, a very recent one, wherein I wanted to break away from everything that was “safe” and “secure” — concepts which I had been raised in for twenty-two years. I’ve been starving for meaning and I went out of my way to find it. Suffice it to say, once I stepped out of my comfort zone, I was ravished by the reality of it all. My constant belief that there is good in everything, in any person, and trust could easily be given away because of this “good”, turned out to be not much of a constant in the world. At least not in this one.

I’ve only been scared of two things: 1) ending up  being alone and 2) ending up with someone who isn’t right for me. I’ve exhausted number two in every possible way. And right now I’m facing the fear of the first. Although quite frankly, this hiatus on relationships had never felt this refreshing to me. In my recent break away from my “bubble”, I found how love and any feeling related to it can be manipulated just so people could avoid the fear of the first. You’d be amazed how relationships, the most basic yet insanely profound human need, can begin, grow, evolve, and “last” in lies of manipulation. That I became part of it is another story — more a story of idiocy based on my belief of “the good.” It astounds me to watch how some people, no matter how intelligent they can be, could swallow living their day-to-day lives in this masochistic madness. I’ve watched them walk blind in the dark, groping their way through everything just because they think they’re with the “right one.” I was, for lack of a better term, a speculator wanting to run for my life at the mere sight of them.

How is this related to the movie? I don’t know. Lol. But this is the closest encounter I’ve had with another face of reality that does bite. I suppose the reason why I’ve always been scared of commitment at this point is the possibility of losing myself way too early in life. To lose myself in a relationship that lacks mutual understanding of its meaning for both parties has got to be the worst nightmare I’d ever imagine sleeping myself in. Going blind and losing everything for the sake of romance isn’t the only thing life is about right? So I ended every encounter “prematurely” (as they say) but it really was nothing more than me doing myself and the other party a big favor.

Sometimes we get so scared of being alone, it stops us from living the one side of reality that could actually save us. The fear of the first has been gently rocking me through the waves as we speak. Maybe this could be my new bubble. And maybe this will prepare me for the next hurl.

I feel you near.

Jude: You know you’re my girl, right?

“I held the stars to light where you are
When your unfeigned heart called to me through the dark
Soaked in the sound that rose from the ground
There I could feel
I felt, I felt you near

Oh I’d wait for the seas to part to be with you.”

[ T O B E W I T H Y O U T H E H O N E Y T R E E S]