Filipino Thoughts

Let me just say this straightaway: I love my country, and I love my countrymen. I believe that we're a people of endurance and of wit, and though we sometimes tend to misplace our faith, I believe we are a nation that is good, intelligent, and full of potential. 


But there are moments that shake my trust in the Filipino people, that make me--unfortunately--feel ashamed of the way we can sometimes act. One such moment occurred at the San Francisco International Airport on the day I was to leave the US for home sweet home. 

A Little Follow-Through

For almost a year now, I've been contributing articles to local teen magazines. I never really thought I'd be doing it, but I find myself enjoying coming up with possible problems that young girls might face in their daily lives and giving out helpful tips to solve them: What do I do when I find myself face-to-face with my crush? How do I ask a guy out without seeming too forward? Why won't my parents cut me some slack? How do I balance my time between school and friends? 


It's surprisingly fun to think up these things and to point the way. It's fulfilling to know that in my own little way I'm helping kids and teenagers deal with the things that stress them out. 


But here's my problem: how do I take my own advice? 

And What A Week It's Been

You know how sometimes you have weeks that go by where you feel like you didn't do anything new or exciting or productive?


Well for me, this wasn't one of them.

One Year Later

I never thought it would come to this. I never even really thought about it. I just sort of assumed--a little pridefully, I admit, but without really giving it all that much thought--that when I finished school I'd go off and begin my life as a successful Woman of the World.


In the back of my head (you know that part of the mind where imagination and reality become difficult to separate? It's that place you don't show other people, that idealistic little spot where you truly believe all your dreams can and will come true against all odds, given time and opportunity), I saw myself with my own place, my own car, and an awesome, well-paying job. I was toned, Solenn Heussaff-style. I had a walk-in closet. I was going on a book tour for my internationally-acclaimed novel. I read Kant, Nietzsche, Marx, and other intellectual stuff. I could quote from the best literary works. I was traveling the world.


Call me a dreamer, but come on. Didn't you have those illusions, too?


Hell, don't you still?


And yet here I am, a full year after graduation, and I find that not much has changed at all. 

From A Fan

Dear Margaret Atwood,

     I'll admit it: I've only read a few of your works. They probably weren't even your best, just your most commercial ones. Die-hard fans of yours would call me a poser. But even from what little I've read from you and the utterly insufficient experience I have in literature, I can tell that you are a master. Actually, I suppose you'd prefer the term mistress, but you get what I'm saying.

     You wield words like a sharp weapon, striking against submission, convention, and prejudice, and defending the woman and the human person from those who seek to bring them down. Your work is art in all its practicality. You are absolutely brilliant, and you inspire me as I'm sure you inspire thousands all over the world. If the impact I make on literature someday is a tiny fraction of what you've made today, then I can say I've succeeded as a writer ten times over.

     You do Canada proud, Ma'am. 

From, A Fan

---

A Little Bit Of Pixie Dust

Saw the tail-end of the movie Hook yesterday--I think they've been running it on HBO for the last few days. I'm ashamed to admit I've never seen the film in full, but I like to think the main point of the story can be found in those critical final scenes: Hook killing Rufio, a grown-up Peter Pan (played, of course, by the ever-lovable Robin Williams) facing Hook for the last time and utterly humiliating him, and of course Peter and his kids making their way back home. 

It's a timeless tale of the triumph of courage over fear and good over evil, and an affirmation of the old adage, "Home is where the heart is."

Just a link

Call it shameless plugging if you want--it kind of is, anyway--but check this out.  

Notes from the dugout: Boys on the side

Very close to my heart, and all. :)