Parental Love before a basketball game

My father had been a basketball player for Ateneo in his youth, and remains a die-hard Ateneo fan to this day. He was able to get two tickets for the La Salle vs. Ateneo game slated for this afternoon at the Araneta Coliseum, after moving heaven and earth to do so. He wanted to get five tickets so the whole family could watch, but we were lucky to get the two already.

            Naturally, we all agreed that Papa would take Ticket No. 1 since he was the most ardent Ateneo basketball fan in the family. And it was only right, we felt, that Tata get Ticket No. 2 since she was teaching in the Ateneo High School. They say it’s even written in the job description of Ateneo teachers... “Article X Section 3: Teachers must attend Ateneo basketball games and cheer their lungs out...” hehe. Or so they say.

            Ogot had to stay home and do some schoolwork. I also had MA stuff to take care of, but        Mama wanted to check out Gateway Mall  (which is right beside the Coliseum), but she didn’t want to go alone so I volunteered to act as her window-shopping companion slash bodyguard (Cubao’s not exactly a peaceful neighborhood). “Live today, work tomorrow,” was my motto. J The plan was, Mama and I would leisurely stroll around this unfamiliar mall while waiting for Tata and Papa to finish watching the game.

            On the way to Araneta, we were all surprised when Papa suddenly turned to me and said, “Why don’t YOU go with Tata to watch the game?”

            I was stunned. First of all, I knew just how much watching this game meant to Papa. For me, it would be the equivalent of my getting a ticket to watch Kathleen Battle (one of my favorite sopranos) perform at the Met (haha, one can dream!).

            This would be the first time in at least 10 years that he would be able to watch a La Salle vs. Ateneo Seniors Game. It meant the WORLD to him. We knew that. And yet... he was willing to give it up... for me. So I could go and watch it with my twin sister. “You’re both young, you should be the ones to go experience this,” he said.

            I hastily assured him that he would be casting pearls before swine, as it were, since I was not (and probably never will be) a basketball fan, despite my having green blood. (Hmmm... come to think of it, my siblings and I have all three “Top Schools” colors of blood in our veins... We went to La Salle Zobel for high school, UP Diliman for college, and now go to the Ateneo for grad studies. So we can sit in either team during a game, and have justification for doing so, hehe.)

            This is just one of the many instances in my life that Papa has shown the depth and extent of his love for me. He may not tell us in words, since he is a true Marlboro macho man and avoids sentimental, flowery speeches. But actions speak louder than words, and he shows us how much he loves us each time he drives us to and fro school/work, each time he brings home some chocolate or apples and oranges when we’re sick, each time he treats us to our favorite Starbucks drink even though he’d never buy himself a cup since he thinks it’s too expensive. He shows it in his stern lectures whenever we forget to fix our bed, or stay up too late typing a paper... he shows it when he forbids us to go to certain places with certain people, telling us that he’d rather we hate him for being “too strict” than let us go and put ourselves at risk.

Truth be told, to be the recipient of such self-sacrificing love is very humbling. It defies logic, and is utterly self-effacing. It is also very inspiring... If I could be half the parent that my own parents are to my siblings and I, it would be the highest achievement I could ever hope for.

God bless our parents! J

P.S. Incidentally, Ateneo won the game by eight points.

P.P.S. Objectively speaking, I think La Salle has the better cheers, Ateneo has the better players, and UP the BEST Alma Mater song (nothing stirs the blood like singing “UP Naming Mahal....”)

Land of Bondage, Land of the Free

LAND OF BONDAGE, LAND OF THE FREE
Raul Manglapus

October 20, 1918 — July 25, 1999
Appointed as the Philippines’ youngest-ever foreign minister in 1957, and was elected to a national senate seat by a landslide in 1961. He ran for President in 1965, but lost to eventual dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Manglapus returned to the foreign affairs post in 1987 as a member of the cabinet of President Corazon Aquino. A statesman of towering stature, he is best summed up by a Philippine newspaper columnist as “…the best President we never had.”
* * *

Once upon a time, the tao owned a piece of land. It was all he owned. But he cherished it, for it gave him three things, having which, he was content: life, first of all, and liberty, and happiness.

Then one day the Spaniard came and commanded him to pay tribute to the crown of Spain. The tao paid tribute. And he was silent — he was certain that he was still the master of his land.

The Spaniard became rich. But with riches, evil entered into him and he came to the tao a second time. He read to the tao a formidable document saying: “According to this decreto real, which unfortunately you cannot read, this that you have been paying me is not tribute but rent, for the land is not yours but mine.” The tao paid tribute and said nothing … He ceased to be a freeman. He became a serf. Still the tao held his peace. The rent went up and up. The tao starved.

And this time at last he spoke. Not in words, but with that rustic instrument with which he cleared the land once his own — the bolo. He transformed it from an instrument of tillage to an instrument of death, and with it drove away the stranger. Then he returned to his field saying: “Now indeed shall I again be master of this land, once my own, but stolen from me by the trickery of quicker wits than mine.”

But the tao was wrong. For the land had another master. This time not a stranger, but his own countryman grown rich. The tao had a new name, kasama, which to us means partner, but which to the tao meant still a slave, for once more he suffered from his countrymen the same things he had suffered from the stranger: the rents, the usury, and all the rest of it.

Yes, the tao returned to his field thinking that he was free. But he soon discovered that he was still a prisoner. His prison, a two-room shack, rent by every wind, without any comforts, except tht three families have there the privilege to starve. The tao’s home has become his very prison. Its doors, if you can call them such, are wide open. It is a prison nonetheless. For the tao is bound to it, not with chains of steel, but with a stronger chain — his honor. To this day, the tao remains a slave, a prisoner of the usurer.

No wonder, then that tao, being a slave, has acquired the habits of a slave. No wonder that after three centuries in chains, without freedom, without hope, he should lose the erect and fearless posture of the freeman, and become the bent, misshapen, indolent, vicious, pitiful thing that he is! Who dares accuse him, who dares rise up in judgement against this man, reduced to this sub-human level by three centuries of oppression. The tao does not come here tonight to be judged — but to judge! Hear then his accusation and his sentence:

I indict the Spanish encomendero for inventing taxes impossible to bear.

I indict the usurer for saddling me with debts impossible to pay.

I indict the irresponsible radical leaders who undermine, with insidious eloquence, the confidence of my kind in our government.

You accuse me of not supporting my family. Free me from bondage, and I shall prove you false.

You accuse me of ignorance. But I am ignorant because my master finds it profitable to keep me ignorant. Free me from bondage, and I shall prove you false.

You accuse me of indolence. But I am indolent not because I have no will, but because I have no hope. Why should I labor, if all the fruits of my labor go to pay an unpayable debt. Free me from bondage, and I shall prove you false.

Give me land. Land to own. Land unbeholden to any tyrant. Land that will be free. Give me land for I am starving. Give me land that my children may not die. Sell it to me, sell it to me at a fair price, as one freeman sells to another and not as a usurer sells to a slave. I am poor, but I will pay it! I will work, work until I fall from weariness for my privilege, for my inalienable right to be free!

BUT IF YOU WILL NOT GRANT ME THIS … If you will not grant me this last request, this ultimate demand, then build a wall around your home … build it high! … build it strong! Place a sentry on every parapet! … for I who have been silent these three hundred years will come in the night when you are feasting, with my cry and my bolo at your door. And may God have mercy on your soul!

Separation Anxiety

Our Internet server has been down the whole weekend (read: Friday evening, the whole of Saturday and Sunday), and you can't imagine the amount of distress it caused our household.

We all suffered separation anxiety, in varying degrees. I was lucky, I had the piano and my books to comfort me. I spent more than two hours Friday evening playing the piano and singing my old pieces (take note, I'd just come from three and a half hours of teaching at CMu!), which made me realize just how much I love Music. I never get tired of doing it, in fact the more I do it the less tired I get. :)

It was both a liberating and stressful experience... liberating in the sense that I rediscovered the simple joys of generations past. There ARE so many more worthwhile things to do. But I am a true product of my technology-savvy generation, and felt anxious about the fact that I could not update myself on the happenings in my friends' lives through bloghopping.

~ ~ ~
I have a new definition of irony.

Irony is lugging one's laptop all the way to a cafe in Makati, buying outrageously priced coffee and even more scandalously priced wi-fi (P100 an hour!!! *gasp*), and getting all of five minutes of Internet when a storm hits and effectively screws up the connection.

Hehe. That's what happened to my siblings and I. We couldn't transfer to another place because we'd be drenched if we did, so we ended up doing "the sibling bonding" over coffee, and actually enjoyed ourselves despite the initial irritation.

Being able to shrug off the unchangeable and philosophically sigh, "Oh well, that's life," is a huge part of learning how to live life. And I learned that, this weekend.
~ ~ ~

When all is said and done, I'm still so glad that the Internet's back :)

My body's telling me something...

I think I've been working too hard lately. My body sent me a hard-to-ignore message when it forcibly shut down last Thursday night, and I woke up Friday morning with a high temperature, a killer headache, and feeling weak as a newborn puppy.

Spent the whole of Friday resting in bed and drowning myself in medication, and I was able to go work yesterday, so, hurray! Except that I now have to spend the long weekend catching up on work. I finished checking test papers yesterday, and today I spent the whole morning inputting the grades for three of my major classes (English 3, English II and English III), and methinks I look like I've got sore eyes. The last time I worked with Excel was waaaay back in high school, so it was an uphill battle for me to type in all the scores of my students. Music 1,2,3 to go.

My M.A. life is in shambles. Haha! Don't tell my profs, but I honestly don't have the time to study for class, and it's a miracle that I got a good grade in our Stat midterms when I squeezed in my cramming time in between meals and checking papers.

I have 10 papers to write, and the deadline is Sept.20.

Papers writen? Zero.

Oh noes.

Concerned friends of mine have been telling me to take it easy, to make time for "rest." And I think... they're right.

Hay. Here's hoping that the 2nd semester of A.Y. '08-'09 will be easier. I desperately want to have time to exercise, I think the reason why my body's prone to illness lately is because I haven't worked out since May.

"Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy," said my favorite cinema lawyer in Legally Blonde. Which might also explain why I've been feeling melancholy as well.

Drat. I really need to get some exercise. Now na.

Okay, shallow and petty ranting done. :)

If you have 20 minutes to spare, I strongly urge you to watch this video of conductor Benjamin Zander on TED.COM. I think watching it is one of the reasons why I was able to recover so quickly from the flu :)

"I have a definition of success. For me it's not about wealth or fame or power. It's all about how many shining eyes I've got around me."

July Book Session & Friends

Long overdue pics!

(If I Only Had A Guitar!!) : REPOST

please help my students (repost)

Aug 17, '08 7:09 AM for everyone

(http://electricfun.multiply.com/journal/item/18/Pls._Help_My_Music_Students?replies_read=1)


I have reached the point of desperation. I am humbly appealing to any kind soul out there to please hear me out.


I am currently teaching a guitar class at the U.P College of music as part of my thesis. My students are members of the Gawad Kalinga Project Laura in Commonwealth, an underprivileged community. I have 11 students in one class, their ages range from 6 to 57 years old. Quite the challenge I know, but the bigger challenge is, not a single one of them owns a guitar.

 

We hold our classes 2 hours a day, once a week. The first part would be for music theory, the second part would be it’s application on the instrument, which we do by taking turns and passing around my guitar. We’ve been doing this for 7 weeks now since we started last July 3.

 

We already sent out a letter last June 19, 2008 to our sponsor which  took weeks before they actually responded They mentioned they will “release funds” and they will send us 8 guitars, (tsss.. 11 nga yung studyante ko eh, grr..) but they didn’t  give us an exact date. “maghintay lang daw kame”, my adviser said.

 

So that’s what we’ve been doing, waiting. The first few weeks, I thought it would be okay to do without the guitar first because I’d be introducing the elements of music. But now that we’ve reached our 7th week, and still no sign of the guitars, I’m having mixed emotions of frustration, anger, fear and a whole lot of stresss!  Their scheduled performance is on Sept.30, 2008 and we haven’t practiced a single thing.

 

My students are good students. They are very receptive to the musical concepts I’ve been teaching them. But shempre lahat naman ng klase ng learning hindi complete unless you are able to apply it.

 

Last Thursday I felt as if someone ran a knife across my chest. when one of my students said she’s been practicing the strumming and chord positions at home. I asked if she knows someone with a guitar, and she said “nag-drawing lang po kame sa papel mam.” (argh! I felt so bad) But I had to be optimistic for them so I said, “That’s good! Natutuwa ako at nakakahanap kayo ng iba’t-ibang paraan para matuto, hayaan niyo dadating na yung gitara niyo, antay lang tayo.” I say that every meeting, and I don’t think I can keep showing up empty-handed.

 

So this is where I am humbly asking your help. I need to borrow 8 nylon-stringed guitars from anyone willing to help. Anyone with a big heart and ready to receive lots of good karma from the universe. Out of the 11 students 3 of them are already covered so I only need 8 more. Please, Its for a very good cause. Don’t worry, I assure you, they are good people and they will take care of your guitars. I would make sure that each one of your guitars will be returned to you unharmed by Sept. 30, or even earlier, as soon as my students get their guitars from our sponsor.

The main objective of my thesis is to help their community by uplifting their sel-esteem and instill confidence in them through music and performance. Because learning and performing music provides opportunities for students to let down their inhibitions and be able to express themselves freely.

 

By helping them realize their musical potential and perform together as a group, they would develop a sense of unity, foster cooperative spirit and strengthen their relationship as a community.

 

With your help, they could very much achieve this  and so much more. Please.

 

For those willing to lend a helping guitar, pls contact me at: 09179322542

 
Thank you  so much!

-Thea Tolentino
http://electricfun.multiply.com/

Disadvantages to an "Elite Education"

"The difference between having a college degree and not having one is far greater than where you go to college. But where you go can determine, to a large extent, who you become. Some of us become jerks. And others spend our lives trying to figure out what it meant to have been there — and how to get over it."

Read the whole article here.