random ramblemate

All Play and No Work Makes Jack Just as Dull

This will be a blog about my musings on the strangeness of busy-ness.

When I was not doing much (job-wise), even the things I truly enjoy doing (writing, reading, furniture-shifting) began to move as though in treacle. (I’ve never had treacle. I’m not even sure what it is, I just know things move slowly in it.)

However, once I got a job that was faster-paced and more heavily loaded, as soon as I started having only a limited amount of time in which to do “fun stuff”, I seemed to be able to find time for them more easily.

(If you live in Manila, you know that this is barring “fun” that has anything to do with traveling or otherwise moving around the city. The traffic is just so bad it should be legendary. I should call it the City Stuck in Treacle.)

Even when I was in college, it was the “heavy” semesters that were the most productive.

Basically, the busier I am, the more easily things slot into my schedule. The freer my schedule is, the lazier I seem to get.

Maybe because my brain is forced to put things on a priority list.

Maybe it’s something like the reason that those who live nearer the school always come late. Some false sense of security, or the mind not putting “coming in on time” high on the priority list.

Does it then follow that productivity rises as busy-ness rises?

Look here, I haven’t blogged in two years and yet I suddenly blog just as the busiest job I have had gets even busier.

Is it because even resting has to be intentional when one is in a busy job? Is it because I am “forced” to schedule everything? Is it that work gives the body an adrenaline high without which it would just — laze around?

I should do a survey or something.

At least, in my case, I have come to the tentative conclusion that although it seems like an ideal situation, all play and no work may make Jack even duller.

An Apology for Silence

That blog title looks like the title of a book, or may at least seem as though I were about to write dramatically on the consequences of non-speech.

However, it means neither of those.

It is, very simply and maybe disappointingly, a literal apology I am writing for the silence that has fallen over this blog site. Your Random Ramblemate has been silent. When did it stop, I wonder? Was it when I had become busy? Was it when I had found new games for my brain to play? Certainly since March I had ceased most thought of blogging — I had just begun a new and quite busy job doing something I like very much: proofreading and copyediting. The volume of work itself is exhilarating, when it is something I can do and am reasonably good at, and when there are proper periods of rest in between. (Rest is, for me, VERY important.) It was even more exhausting in the job I had where I was doing maybe half the work I should have been to be earning the pay I was. (That sentence wasn’t confusing, was it?)

Brain stimulation — now there’s a waker-upper.

Also I just love moving furniture around anywhere I happen to live and realized, after we had to shift work desks in my new workspace, that those little tweaks in life (including new clothes and accessories) just give the color to life. Doing the same work but in a new environment — VERY stimulating, interesting, fun!

Already I have another bunch of words in mind for writing . . . but you will see that in the next blog. 😉

For now, I do apologize for my 2-year silence (I just got a shock realizing that the last blog I’d written was in JULY 2015!!!).

I was homeschooled.

This piece was written in 2011, as a draft for a contribution to my university’s publication when I was in my second year. I was 19 years old. It was not published – a later version was – and I decided to put it on my blog instead (which has after all been running a bit dry).

A salute to all homeschoolers!

[start]

I was homeschooled.

And by now I’m familiar with the usual reactions to that statement—it’s the disbelieving “Really??” or the shocked repetition: “You were homeschooled?” or more often than not, the other person didn’t understand me at all, and says, “Say it again?” or “Which school?” And then comes the inevitable question: “Why?”

And I could go on and on about the technicalities here, but I’d rather give you a simple glimpse of life through my—a homeschooler’s—eyes.

Well, first of all, I was homeschooled through all my elementary years; so I have never experienced—well, whatever you experience in elementary school. And I don’t think I’ve ever walked up to anybody and asked “What was kindergarten like?”

For myself—and my perpetual classmate, my twin sister—it was really simple. I don’t even remember studying or really thinking about it—we just learned. Reading came quite naturally, math was fun; science was like story-telling, cursive writing was monotonously amusing, the inside of the ear was an absorbed adventure, and spelling was a game. A new set of encyclopedias (Wikipedia wasn’t the fad yet) excited us. That our hand-drawn maps of the Philippines just wouldn’t come right proportion-wise was frustrating. One morning Mom finally posted a “Lupang Hinirang” on the wall and we stumbled through our national anthem for the first time—and there was that list of pangkasalukuyan, pangnagdaan, and panghinaharap words on manila paper, too.

I suppose that’s my first memory of thinking school might actually be hard.

We did have books — I remember Science books about bones and biomes, and when we had reached Grade 6 and our Filipino book was two grades lower, and Mom set us a chapter in Math each day. At around that time, too, there were piano lessons and swimming lessons… but that was about the extent of the extra-curricular activities. We rejoiced in books and outdoor and indoor play, and spent hours enjoying toys we had created out of crepe paper and tissue tubes. We had a dog, too.

And thus did elementary pass.

First year high school. This would be the first time we’d go to an actual school! It wasn’t a conventional school, but it was a step closer. Shekinah Glory Christian Academy used a self-study curriculum, an A.C.E. schooling method using “PACE’s”. We got along all right—grades-wise. So in my very first school experience, I tried having to wake up and get up early every day; I experienced my first “crush” in the words of the world; I worked with a team for the first time, and discovered two different kinds of teammates: dependable and not dependable. I guess the school was just too small for comfort—everyone was trying to pair up everyone with someone else.

We homeschooled again for 2^nd and 3^rd year, this time with the PACE’s. Homeschooling takes self-discipline! Studying is at your own pace, your own deadlines. If you’re not ready for this Math test today, you can always postpone it to tomorrow. In fact, our schoolwork spilled over into summer those two years—in spite of our considering ourselves pretty self-disciplined!

-Your social life was dead, You tell me. I know. But not really. This is where family and church come in. Mom is my best guide and mentor. Dad is my fierce protector—a sweet fierce protector. My twin is a constant Ate and confidante; my little sister is the funnest companion I could wish for; and I love them all to bits! My closest friends were all from my church—they still are.

And then, there was Corpus Christi. The last leg of my high school life. Senior year. And “culture shock” (technically not, but the differences were big enough). I was a Senior who felt very much like a Freshman—and probably acted like it. I suppose one ages slowly, in homeschool—some of my classmates were surprised I was older. I did not understand more than a handful of words in Bisaya. I was amazed at the size of the school (I found out later it wasn’t even that big). I was crushed by the unaccustomed deadlines. But I met a wonderful variety of people! Now this was high school!

By the end of the year I could understand basic conversational Bisaya. Breakthrough! And I’d got used to the deadlines and had learned to manage my time so I didn’t stress out every night. I still hadn’t discovered much more about myself extra-curricular-wise, though. That may be one of the advantages of conventional schooling.

Today my college life is mostly about discovering myself and my abilities—which I was supposed to have done in elementary. But my social development’s a bit delayed (according to Psychology’s own Erik Erikson). So that, from my experience, is a glimpse of my homeschooled life.

Maybe I’ve even answered the question “Why?”

So, delighted to make your acquaintance, and…

Yes,

I was homeschooled.

(fin)

TEA ROCK foodie blog!

by Ruth Suson

I was at Tea Rock at UP Town Center the other day at lunchtime, for my officemate’s going-away lunch get-together (also called the “despedida”). It was my first time at Tea Rock, and I was excited to try it out!

The ambiance of the place was nice; decorated in blues, it felt cool, clean, and pleasant. I found it curious that a place named “Tea Rock”, obviously somewhere to get milk teas and such, also served quite a variety of lunch meals.

My order: a Jumbo Chicken Steak bento meal with a Cheese and Rock Salt Wintermelon milk tea.

I loved that every bento meal gave the customer an instant 20-peso-off the drink!

The first course to arrive was the soup! It was squash soup, served with every bento meal. It was very light with the bright particles floating about in the liquid. It was of a thin consistency, mildly flavored, and as with most soups, best taken hot.

Me with the squash soup for size reference :) — Me with the squash soup for size reference 🙂

Next came the bento meal. Smack in the center was a red sauce for the chicken, which was considerately cut into strips for quick eating. In the upper left corner was coleslaw, and the lower left pocket held a deliciously tasty vegetable side dish. The chicken itself was simply huge and crisply covered; it held the upper right corner. Below this was the rice, although the menu offered a choice of noodles soup. On the rice sat half a boiled egg.

I loved all the side dishes! The rice was cooked well, too. In my opinion, the chicken was not amazing, but cooked crisply and tastily enough to not be tiresome. It went perfect with the veggie side dish and the red sauce.

Also, there was way too much of it. (Although a guy might complain that there was too little rice!) But waste not! I had the excess chicken wrapped to go by the very accommodating staff.

I had taken the Cheese and Sea Salt Wintermelon tea on recommendation by a friend. I also thought I would like it, as I always get the Rock Salt and Cheese Green Tea drink at Happy Lemon.

In Tea Rock, the wintermelon taste dominated the tea; an overall sense of a slight extra saltiness and the creaminess of the tea gave away the presence of the salt and cheese. It was lightly creamy but still thick enough to give a sense of richness to the taste, which I enjoyed.

Cheese and Sea Salt Wintermelon milk tea!

Overall, with the helpful staff and the company of friends, Php250 wasn’t bad to pay for a very nice experience.

The Modern Milkman

As far as I can tell, at least in the world I live in (“world” denoting, of course, that circle of society, culture and urbanity that I move in every day in the, er, speckled group of islands in the Pacific Ocean), gone are the days of town milkmen who take away your empty bottles and leave fresh new milk in glass bottles in the wee hours of morning. After all, who knows what random person might sneak away one or two for a few extra pesos?

This time, I’m thinking in liters of water instead of bottles of milk.

As a general thing, my family uses a telephone (talk about modern) to dial the purified-water store near our subdivision to ask them to deliver 3 one-liter bottles of purified water to our doorstep. (Being a second-story house, accessible only by a steep staircase, this makes the delivery quite a feat.) We trust the water boys enough that the payment is left taped to the inside of our screen door for them even when we’re out. That’s the basic routine, and has been for years.

Earlier this week, for once, in the spirit of clearing up a tiny bit of space in our cluttered little home, someone put the empty water bottles outside the front door. There they stayed, quite forgotten, in the company of a little white dog and our passing shoe- or slipper-clad feet as we entered and exited our domain.

Came Saturday, and a late breakfast; one of the rare weekend moments when the entire family sits down together at the breakfast table. Then the little white dog barked twice. As far as we know, he only barks when playing with his inanimate toys that he pretends are… well, animate. Mom wondered aloud, “What’s he angry at now?” And then a voice at the gate! Dad went to investigate, and came back to us laughing.

The water boy? But we hadn’t called! Well, he’d told Dad, he had seen the bottles outside the door and had come by to take them away and leave fresh bottles of water in their place.

Wasn’t that just sweet?

After almost a year in the city – how precious this whiff of country charm, of modern milkmen.

For the love of the Post-It note

Heads-up: Here follows an exposition on the merits of the Post-It note.

(It happened in a moment of nothingness and wandering thoughts.)

Written: June 23, 2014, Monday, 3:36pm

I adore Post-It notes. I just love them. And I’ve had many experiences that compare the genuine, original Post-It notes and the imitation sticky notes. (Scripti comes close.) But each time, the Post-It surpasses them all.

For example, I have here two large sticky notes: A Post-It note and an imitation sticky note. They are both stuck to the wall of my little cubicle – that’s basically a hard plastic surface. After a few days, the orange (imitation) sticky note started to flip up – curl up at the corners – and the sticky part is coming undone. The green Post-It I must still test, but from the start it stays flat on to the surface without curling.

Another experience is with my chord notebook that I used for about 4 years while volunteering for the music ministry at my church, Victory Cagayan de Oro. Each page had Post-Its stuck on with one song per Post-It, and when I was actually playing I’d line the keyboard with the Post-Its where I could easily consult them for those mentally elusive chord sequences and they wouldn’t be seen from the crowd. This worked well, no matter how much I unstuck and stuck those Post-Its on again. They stayed flat and they stuck on. After a while, I began to run out of Post-Its. Since there are numerous other imitation sticky notes on the market available at a much lower price, I got some to add more songs to my chord notebook. I almost immediately saw the difference between these notes and the Post-Its. At first they worked fine. But after a few transfers and unsticking and sticking back on, they started to lose their stick. They also curled up annoyingly while on the keyboard surface, and even on the edges of my notebook. (Not that I’ve ever tried the Post-It tabs, so I can’t say for those.)

I wonder why. Is it that the paper used is lighter and thinner than the Post-It paper, so Post-Its don’t curl so much? But how do they make it so that the adhesive remains sticky even after numerous unstickings? At any rate, I reach my conclusion. Post-Its are just the best.

June 23, 2014 Imitation sticky note vs. a Post-It note — June 23, 2014
Imitation sticky note vs. a Post-It note

(Update: as of today, January 30, 2015, the green Post-It note is still flat and straight on my cubicle wall. The orange – well, at least it hasn’t come off yet.)

An exchange of poetry

To a freelance, on-the-spot poet.

To a young poet, a budding poet.

Wonderful idea, that, to let anyone give you a word, a smile, a strange event, or even to let you think for them and pick something, anything… and to make poetry out of it. In a minute. No erasures. It is daunting, I think. And I told you that. “I don’t want to tax your brain.” And you put it into that portrait poem you made for me. I’ve met you for what, 10 minutes? Yet it was an experience.

Enthusiasm

Shining out of every crack he allows

His appearance not giving glimpse
to the raw talent
and the phrasing
and the imagery
of his mind.

Eager confidence exuding
with each word
leaving his lips

One must speak to him
to encounter him.

Dauntless.

– randomramblemate

Just because short posts are fun.

A quote is a short post.

A quote:

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

– Anais Nin

That one in the family

She’s my younger sister. Almost exactly five years younger than my twin and me – which puts her at 17. Of course, being that much younger we didn’t know till lately exactly what her skills were and where her interests lay. For all we knew, she did a bit of everything – unlike my twin and me, who are as far apart as night from day.

In fact, we’re so far different that that topic merits an entirely different blog. Suffice it to say that the family, that is our parents and the twins, believed her to be what you would call “well-rounded”. She did a good bit of drawing, she was into violin and guitar for a year or so, and she was even drawn into sports for a while – soccer, specifically.

And then, it happened. Shortly before I graduated from college – that was March of this year – she began to lean toward pencil drawing portraits. We were amazed at how good she was. Even after her own freshman year began – also this year – and now well into her second semester, she spends hours each day filling new pages of her drawing books. She has recently begun venturing into pen drawings and is currently reveling in her latest Christmas gift from the parents: a set of new drawing pencils, a set of charcoal sticks, a kneaded eraser, and a fixative spray.

Not only that – she is proving to have a very good voice. Better than any of us, and our family loves to sing. Her vocal range is higher and lower than mine – higher and lower! She also loves to harmonize in the second voice and is delving into the secrets of the third voice. With proper training I’m sure she will extend her range and develop stamina. In fact, I can’t wait to see what she will be able to do in the years to come.

She searches for actors’ pictures to reproduce on paper, and looks for sites and online videos that give tips on drawing. She has a huge library of music in her iTouch and she listens and harmonizes with the songs.

She amazes me, I am so proud of her and I absolutely love what she can do. Looking at her drawings I’m sure an onlooker will see that there is much to improve. But if the passing observer could have seen in how short a time she developed her drawing skills – it seems leaps and bounds, in so few months! And I’m sure the streak has only just begun.

(December 26, 2014)

Below are samples of her pencil sketches from 2012 to 2015. 🙂

April 2012 (15 years old)

August 18, 2014 (16 years old)

early 2014 (17 years old)

July 27, 2014 (17 years old)

December 30, 2014 (17 years old)

January 5, 2015 (17 years old)

Visiting: The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial

We went into the American cemetery on a whim. It was a Sunday, and we had visited some friends; so we used a route that we normally wouldn’t have, on Sunday. This route passed by the gate leading into the memorial park. “Why don’t we go in? I think it’s open,” Dad said. They told us we’d been there before, when we (the twins) were a year old. Obviously, this would be the first time we’d actually remember going. So we drove in. A guard came and looked at dad’s license, and told us where the parking was. He was very friendly.

The place was beautiful. The roads were very wide, the grass was very, very green. It made a stark contrast to the white marble crosses lined up in orderly rows across the green fields. As we passed them in the car, I thought, So this is what it looks like. Little did I know how feeling would join seeing as we got a closer look!

Finally we parked, and stepped out, snapped a few pictures. It was amazing, that spot of peace in the very heart of Bonifacio Global City, Manila’s newest high-tech booming city. Around us rose buildings reaching into the sky; but where we were, winds blew softly and the green grass and the trees welcomed us. Other families walked around or sat and lay on the grass nearby. I can safely say it was my first time in anything resembling a nice park in the urban zone.

And then we stepped onto the grass, and among the crosses. Here and there instead of a cross was a 6-pointed Star of David, to mark the symbolic graves of Jewish men.

It was at this point that my heart went out to them. Each marble cross and star had a name engraved on it, along with infantry divisions, rank, home state, and month and year of death. 1943. 1944. As I stared, it slowly came home to me – all those war movies you’d watched, Ruth? This is them. They were there. They were there.

My sisters and I slowly walked along the rows, reading names aloud. Imagining. Honoring. These men. Young men, most likely. Who died on foreign soil, fighting during World War II. Real men. Real names. It was mind boggling.

After a while we left the green fields, and wandered toward the chapel, where the maps were, and a small prayer room, with words engraved into the walls. On either side of the chapel stretched two long rows of pillars, it seemed, holding the roof up. Except each pillar was a marble slab, and each was adjacent to another – and each was completely lined, back to back, with the names of the missing in action. Alphabetically were the last names lined up, and their ranks and positions were there, and the state that they came from. Some were engraved in gold, denoting men given the medal of honor. Others were marked with a small symbol that meant they were no longer missing. But the most staggering was the sheer volume. Names upon names upon names, stretching out on the slabs, so many slabs! So many men! It was unbelievable. It was tragic. It was beautiful, serene – but oh, so tragic!

Suddenly I realized that there were so many missing – I read their ranks, positions. Gunner’s mate. First mate. Captain. Admiral. They were seamen. Seamen who had gone down with their ships on the Pacific. Alistair Maclean’s brilliant, heart-breaking book, HMS Ulysses, came back to me with a stunning freshness. All hands lost. Down with their ships. This was what these lists of names were. I’d never known war. I never want to. For the first time, the past world wars, and the losses of war, seemed real to me.

Men who had trained together, lived together, laughed together, fought together. Here they were. Here they are. So far from home. So real.

I can say, I suppose, that the purpose of the memorial held true. It certainly brought me to a sense of the reality and the futility of the great loss of life that happened during the war. It certainly brings these men back to a place of honor and respect in the minds and hearts of people who had never experienced war.

Soldiers who lived, who died, in a once-upon-a-time now brought near with such clarity – I salute you. Thank you.