ES2PIDO|Estudyanteng Pinoy Dormitorian

This is one of my feature article entries which got a perfect score. And it’s my centenary blog post. Hope you’ll like it. ^_^

And I apologize if I can’t visit your blogs that often… I’m just so busy dealing with Nicolas Copernicus and Doraemon in Kingdom Come.

Entry #10 - Personality Sketch

Discipline and self-reliance. That’s what my Dad always reminds to us whenever we stumble on the “ginisang kalabasa with talong and other poisonous condiments” he served on the table–when we still have that “table”, I mean. I was still a kid back then, a kid whose brain worked like a cretin and never cared about the wonders of escayola and water mixed together. Which means I didn’t listen to the morning sermons of my Dad and focused only on the orange juice beside me. Later I knew, when my Dad was still of the same age as mine, he didn’t formally go to schooling and sold pan de sal on the streets. Then I stared at the poisonous vegetables on my plate again and wondered endlessly until the day this article came to be.

My dad is a sculptor–an occupation where none of the residents in Paete, Laguna would question. He sketches, he paints, he carves, and he furnishes. he had been earning a lot since he started laboring in his uncle’s firm in Laguna. But he was never contented. He wanted to go to school and be educated by the wonders of science and linguistics. So he worked out for it. For years, he had been selling bread on his bicycle like a newspaper boy to suffice his school expenses until he reached highschool. He worked all for himself, by himself.

He never had a perfect family. He never had perfect parents.

His father was a drunkard. His mother never took education as a priority. Neither his brothers nor sisters as well. But my Dad tried to become one and helped himself and his family in their everyday expenditures–whether important or superficially ‘recreational’. And he finished college with the help of his aunt in Las Piñas.

And now, I am seated uncomfortable against the table with the poisonous vegetables on my pink plate. I never experienced being scolded by my Dad with his hands or his Salvadore belt. But his intimidating authority speaks by itself. How would I be disciplined and become self-reliant with a squash and an eggplant even in at that time I already knew that squash has high vitamin A while the eggplant had no other nutritive values except fiber and carbohydrates?

Before, I never eat vegetables unless a belt or a broomstick is seated right next to me. But Dad insists. We should learn to live life on our own with the squash and the eggplant.

He learned the fundamentals of sculpting by just watching his co workers doing their giant sculptures in their warehouse. Whenever he is alone, he would experiment on anything. He secretly used his grandfather’s tools whenever he practices sculpting. And he would never stop until he gets it correctly even if he is working already in Guangdong, China.

Whenever he is at home, he would sing and sing even if all our glasswares have cracked up. Then I would get another microphone and devastate our whole community just for the sake of thinking what he should design and carve. And then if he’s done, he would not want anyone to get past through the lines in the house which he called “Area of Responsibility: Do Not Disturb. Point of No Return.”

Whenever he is back at home, he would always want to heighten the volumes of our audio system and watch movies he bought in Hongkong. Not because he wanted to show-off to our neighbors that he finally arrived from the greenest pastures, but just to do what he always did when he is alone or with other people in his apartment in China.

Whenever he is back at home, he would talk to us about the cruelties of working outside the Philippine Archipelago, like there are so many burglars and snatchers in China and how all my Dad’s most expensive perks had been stolen by the Chinese. He would talk about himself, about pornography, about mommy in their first years in life, everything. Everything that would scope all the 13 years he missed without us his family beside him. he would just talk like any father would talk about.

Whenever he is back at home, he would teach us what he learned in his work–digital imaging, 3D modeling and animation, designing, among others just for a couple of minutes and then leaves us to study it only by ourselves.

Whenever he is back at home, he would always make everything seemed perfect. The looks of the house, our talent, our speaking, our attitude towards others, and the like. He is not that strictly a perfectionist, but he preferred to have us give our best on everything so as not to disappoint other people.

Whenever he is back at home, the house is of his full authority. He is the head of the family, the husband of my mother, and the father of my kuya, my brother Henry and Teri, and me.

He would tie our shoes before we go to school. He would clean our appliances and windows and reorder our upholstery a whole lot differently. He would give us his things and call it “our own”. He would ask questions and answer it himself. He would laugh at all the cheesiest shows on television and yawn at all we though the funniest. He would design a floor plan of our small bungalow house and then keep it to himself. He would play Chinese songs, sing along with it, and then I would always end up memorizing the song earlier than he. Yet for retribution, he would cook his all-time favorite ‘ginisang kalabasa with talong and other poisonous condiments’ and commands us to fill our stomachs with this special treat of his with the broomstick and belt on our side. He would spend a lot and care less on the following days.

He would always do that whenever he is back at home. As of now, I’m contented and satisfied with the online chat and emails.

I rarely see him in his bad cold weather outfit everytime he comes home. Because he rarely does come home. His Giordano polo shirt bought in some luxurious department store in Hongkong complements well with blue, sometimes brown, jacket filled with nonempty pockets of varying sizes. Unlike those OFWs from the Middle East who come out of the wide open with gold jewelry horrendously contrasting with their obvious monstrosity, he never wore any except his replaceable wristwatch.

But will all the luggage and the unlabeled Balikbayan boxes next to him, we who anticipate his arrival on the NAIA or stunned for his surprise return of the comeback, think of only one thing:

No, not the “pasalubong”.

Dad is finally back.

Happy 20th Church anniversary to you, Mom and Dad! Love ya and all!

My, uhm, new header image(?). What do you think?

If your heart speaks louder than what you think, you would need no extra effort to bring out the best in you… whenever and wherever you need it.

-Neil Bernardo,
La Viscaya: Resum Postiva Vregulavya.

Haha. Pretending to have finally published my comic book with the original concept of “universal orbital microcosmic existence.” Explanation? Wait until I find interestin publishing such. ^_^

When I find something not really interesting, no matter how important it is, I don’t bother. Unless there’s a Lucky Me! Pancit Canton or two to be offered as just compensation.

Keeping the day intact and focused is no big deal for me. I need a reason to everything. Reason to continue what I have started. Reason to interest me to continue what I have started, that is.

I don’t know why I came up to take journalism as a career in the future. For someone who have been submerged to visual arts for my entire life, writing and speaking is a mile more estranging.

My former classmates would always be surprised everytime they ask me about the course I am taking in college. They know me as an uber classroom boy who didn’t bother socializing with the outside world (that is, batchmates of other sections). They know me as the art class professor who does all the room decorating, drawing, painting, and props making in play productions and major school events. They know me as someone who didn’t extrovertly showcase himself in front of many people like some celebrity wannabe in Starstruck. They know me as someone who doesn’t want to be known to many people, but the congratulatory banners in our school screaming my whole name would oppose my solitary prerogative.

They know me as an artist who writes incoherently and grammatically incorrect. So I preferred drawing than essay writing.

“Tapos Mass Comm ka?“, they asked. Then I remember they were claiming for flash nose bleeds. They found me a bit different when they heard me answering their subsequent questions in an unusual diction and language.

Now, major subjects suddenly pop out of our curriculum. Subjects like I am required to create a short interpretative/investigative news report vid about the Sangguniang Kabataan abolishment in the Philippines. Or the present state of mass media influence to society phenomena. Or the application of Law of Mass Media in the short documented life and profession of Ellen Tordesillas. All which requires proper time management and money and, of course, interest. Then the reason to continue will be the last on the checklist.

Our school can’t gratify my expectations, and it greatly affected me. I lost my interest to exert extra effort in our class.

But after the interviews with some media practitioners, I think I have to change my mind.

———

We’ve interviewed Cong. Gilbert Remulla last Friday. And I was starstruck. He’s Gilbert, and he’s a Remulla. I finally had my hands on him for the first time.

Sorry. No pics. Wish Cong. Remulla would read this and send us our pic ^_^. Earth calling Cong. Gilbert Remulla… yohoo!!

Then Ellen Tordesillas on the next. God, I thought we would spend a lot for her interview. But we’re so surprised. We’ve munched on free supreme cheezy crust pizzas she ordered, and for merienda a plate of seafood fettucini and ravioli courtesy of her friend Sol Vanzi, a former journalist. We’ve learned so much from her, you might be interested in what we have talked about.

Say “Mouse”! I thought that was serious.
I really said mouse.

I really looked tired. Yet in fact, my stomach is full
of 8 pounds of Italian recipes. Haha. I need a workout

Got some text messages while I was playing with myself.

“Happy Valentines Day sa inyong lahat! Wala na akong load bukas kaya ngayon ko kayo babatiin. Happy valentines Day!”
(Happy Hearts day to all! I’m running out of text credits so I’m greeting you this early. Happy Valentines Day!”

Then another

“Happy Valentines! Yihee! Mwuah!”

So I grouptexted them with this.

“Happy Hearts Day!”

After 5 seconds, one sms received.

“Happy Hearts Day rin!” (Happy Hearts Day too!)

Then I responded in an instant.

“Happy Healthy Hearts Day! No worries! No pains! No risk of cardiac arrest for singles like me! happy Healthy Hearts Day!”

What a good evening to start the sleeping without worrying to spend on a date or another for tomorrow.
—————

I never mentioned about my housemate, Mac, who always cracked the Hulk out of me when I realize he’s cooking my canned goods in my cabinet without asking permission. Now I’m mentioning him (for art’s sake). Apart from that, he always use some of my thingies and claims it as his own because of his ignorance not to ask anyone if someone owns it or not.

Another apart from that, he asked me to burn CDs for him and do a personalized cover using his (insert grotesque overly catastrophic looking parloric gaypose here) photo and then after a whole month, he didn’t pay for it. And he intentionally fools us that he always runs out of money albeit we are aware that he notoriously lies to us to divert the fact that he used his money to buy but nonsensical, absurd items for his perverted vanity.

Then yesterday, one of my housemates rushed to the canteen where my classmates and I salivate their expensive but not good tasting meals. She was hysterical.

“Winakwak ng aso yung hita ni Mac kanina… hindi ko alam gagawin…”
(A dog devoured Mac’s leg just now. I dunno what to do)

I feel sorry. But my brothers and my classmates think (while smirking and laughing silently) otherwise.

I thought Mass Comm is easy.

The term was weird, I told to myself when I heard the world Mass Comm from one of my Grade 3 classmates. We were telling stories about what we will do if we finally finish our schooling. I said to her, oh, I guess I’ll be following my father’s footsteps in China. I will draw, design, and craft for his company if in case he falls ill in his job. Or, I’ll be more ambitious and get richer than JAZA and build a company where I can create my own animé series and be proud to project it all over the world as the very first all Filipino animated series…

Diane just said this blankly. “Ako? Maskom,” (Me? Mass Comm) with that strong Filipino twang.

Anong Maskom?, I asked her.

“Maskom. Maskomportable.” (Mass Comm. More comfortable)

For so many years, idea never came into being that I would be taking this course upon entering college. No one did. All my classmates would say that I might be some architect that would design the most intricate house in the Philippines and would cost a hundred million pesos. Some insist that I would be entering UP to take Fine Arts and produce the very first commercially successful animated series made by a Filipino. Others would rant that I will be following my dad’s footsteps and set my ugly feet permanently in China or Japan.

Yet I took BA Mass Communication, without knowing that I will be majoring Journalism.

There’s this stereotype about students with their reason that Mass Communication will not involve math ever. No. Your first semesters will be bombarded with lots of math than any other non-math-related course in your university. Then you would kill yourself for disbelief.

Second, Mass Communication is easy. Yes, it’s very easy to write and speak. No, because you need your brain to work efficiently and simultaneously while you speak and write. It’s no joke. Math is easy because you just have to compute and compute. And there’s always an exact answer. I find engineering courses easier since I bested Math in my highschool. Squee.

I halfheartedly admit the fact that during the times when I was clueless to think of what degree I will pursue in college, I took consideration that the course will be easy for me, and highly related to my interest directly proportional to its costs.

Then, I realized I was fooling myself.

I am so piled with lots of projects.

Filming is never easy for us. Most of us here in CvSU are members of the Philippine povertsia, where we would nearly beg for alms just to be provided with our school expenses.

My projects are the following:

1. Short feature/documentary/whatever film about a media practitioner, preferably a journalist, and his life according to the laws of mass media. Courtesy of our terror but friendly but still terror professor Atty. Adonis Meñez.

2. Short investigative/interpretative report about the present condition of the Sangguniang Kabataan in Cavite

3. Case analysis about the “Mass Media to Society” influence. That means, we can go to places we never imagine.

4. Communication research mini thesis. We haven’t discussed what we should study about.
And

5. Another case analysis slash feasibility study of another function hierarchy diagram about the Personal Identification System in De La Salle University-Dasmariñas.

Sheesh. And it’s tentative. God save us all.

———

BTW, I forgot to mention about the gift I received from Chas. Golly. A cute reindeer stuff toy souvenir from Norway. Hihi. It’s so cute, all my schoolmates wanted to steal it. Because they rarely find one similar to mine. They’re so envious, they nearly had stolen my bag and slashed my throat. All because of my cute, cuddly, internationally-signed-sealed-and-delivered, reindeer stuff toy. Hahaha.

Thanks Chas!