January 2015 – random ramblemate

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.