For several weeks I’ve been researching and gathering arguments for my next article on my fave topic: lawyers and how they came from hell and back. I already thought of the perfect intro, chose the best lay-out, and found the facts that would send their a**es steaming in mid-air. But when I started writing, I found myself writing this instead; and I’m not wondering anymore --- because lately, I’m getting tired of hating already.
My class notebook is simply my best outlet in terms of art, and a statement of who I am. Unlike most students who choose their notebook design from the wide range that National Bookstore offers, I pick out my own and reinvent my old binder with recycled materials. Every start of the semester, I make sure I come up with the neatest blueprint which best suits my mood. I cut clippings, nice and striking words, pictures, and other stuff from newspapers and magazines, and lay them out meticulously on the four sides of the binder. And by the way, I got that binder free from a Rob department store during my first year in college, and I promised myself I’d use it until I graduate. So literally the only expense I make is for the new leaves for my notes, which cost me only about P70 per sem (colored dividers included). Really cool.
When I was in first year I remember my cover was from the DSWD advertisement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The picture depicted about 4 or 5 rectangular closed fists in different heights reaching upwards in a plain background. There was nothing but black and red behind the words: ANG SAGOT SA KAHIRAPAN AY REBOLUSYON, with every word about half an inch in size. The catch is that below are the smaller letters which spelled, SA PAG-IISIP AT PAMAMARAAN. That was nice, really. Inside, I cut out and pasted my brothers’ old blueprints from his engineering classes back in college. I wrote some Sanskrit characters on the small envelope for papers, and there you have it.
On my second year I cut stuff from EDSA Revolution’s memorabilia, like sepia pictures of Doy Laurel and Ninoy Aquino and his funeral.
On my third year I wanted to have it all white. I covered the whole thing with an inverted poster of Britney Spears (free from Pepsi) so one can see only the white part. Then at the bottom rightmost corner I simply put a small black and white version of Rock Ed’s poster on their MRT gig series for Human Rights Day with a picture of one of my favorite contemporary Filipino writers, Lourd de Veyra of Radioactive Sago Project (RASP). I filled the other sides with small Rock Ed stickers. Inside, I printed the lyrics of RASP’s “Alaala ni Batman,” divided it to the number of subjects, and pasted them on every divider. Each course code, I wrote in Braille. Of course it was not embossed.
Just last sem I asked from my dad if I can have the envelope from one of the letters UNICEF sends him annually. It looked really gruesome. Printed on its dirty brown paper were the scripted words, WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SLEEP ON THIS SHEET OF PAPER? Funny how people reacted whenever they read that: Si Ayn, nangongonsiyensiya. Good they know. Haha. Inside I cut and pasted the black and white pictures of the street children and UNICEF’s contact numbers, which were all enclosed in the same letter. At the back part I placed the back part of my brother’s Smashing Pumpkins’ Rotten Apples album. No pictures on dividers, this time; and no foreign language, too.
But this sem was the funniest of them all. It was already Monday and I still haven’t though of the design (I usually do it a week before classes start). At first I decided I’d retain the konsiyensiya factor for the cover part, and the album cover at the back. But something in me was strongly telling and actually yelling at me to just forget about the first sem and move on to my last. I usually state my angst on my notebook, if you might have pictured, but angst this time was of no issue anymore. It was very symbolic. As I was tearing everything from front to back, I was slowly relieved, as if I was letting go of something I have been heavily burdening myself with lately.
Knowing that I actually had no recycled materials left anymore, I rummaged desperately through my old things. I had no choice. I don’t want to go to class without a notebook, or with a temporary one. As much as I wanted to keep my Weekly Asian Wall Street Journals in file, they were the only materials I have left. And so without a doubt I cut whatever interesting words and figures I could. I covered the whole binder with white once more (this time inverted posters from Bench with artistas. Haha), and pasted all the stuff. So the theme for this last sem was simply Wall Street. The big words (about 1”X1” each letter) RUN THIS WAY became my cover headline gotten from a fitness article. With it were two solved crossword puzzles, whose answers were of the previous week’s, an a long sentence written in really small letters: KNOWLEDGE IS VITAL, BUT UNDERSTANDING HELPS YOU PERFORM MUCH BETTER, from WSJ’s ad.
Inside, I placed a black and white picture of a poignant scene with two persons in a serene place. Above where the words: WHERE EMBRACES LINGER A LITTLE LONGER, from an ad of a resort in Malaysia. Below is written: IT’S LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN AWAY FROM HOME, BECAUSE LIFE IS ABOUT LIVING, from a condo ad.
At the back part I pasted an unsolved crossword puzzle, without the questions--- just the boxes. The back cover includes the question: WILL YOUR INVENTION NAVIGATE THE FUTURE? from the ad of Asia Innovation Awards 2007. Below it is a black and white picture of the first compass, invented by a Chinese. Beside it I halved and placed the words SUNGLASSES DO MORE THAT CUT THE GLARE on both sides, from a sunglass feature article; and below, it’s stated: BE ANYTHING BUT OBVIOUS, from a Tudor watch ad.
For the dividers I placed two liquor recipes, mojito, a Hawaiian mint liquor with the big words MINT CONDITION… DON’T CRUSH THE STEMS, and whisky with HONEY AND SPICE (and I don’t even drink. Weird.); park maps of Shanghai and Bangkok; food pictures from the fastest eating Japanese guy who ate hundreds of hotdogs in 5 minutes with the words FAST FOOD; and the Malaysian mountaineer’s picture with the words THE LONGEST CLIMB.
Individually they were all meaningless. Gotten from mere ads and feature articles, they were all but lame on their own. But it was the neatest I ever made, and I didn’t mind staying up to 1:30 am before my first class at starts at 9am the following day. For me every word meant something, something I can’t probably explain, and something which offered me inner peace. For me every word is a poem in itself, a statement. Actually when Maika saw it, she laughed and asked me if it was me, since it was very POSITIVE.
Positive. For years I’ve been living in angst and all frustrations, particularly with the way our country’s system is being run by hoodlums. But lately I just got tired of doing it. I watched the 6:30 news the other day and I just wanted to vomit. I read the same headlines on the newspaper yet somehow it doesn’t anger me much like before. Does it come with age? I’m 20 and maybe I’m done with that stage. Maybe it’s time I concentrate on doing what I individually can do. My past writings were so much full of hatred; but when I look at it closely, all I do is arouse people with more anger. I expose the bad things they ought to know about the government, but don’t offer alternatives.
It’s tiresome. Being bitter and frustrated would lead you nowhere. It’s time we think positive, seriously--- because it’s always easier said than done. Wag na lang natin patulan. Indifference can work with these kinds of things. But please don’t get me wrong.
It’s really weird how I can stay calm despite the tension I’m feeling lately. Just yesterday the Registry of Deeds was asking P1000 bribe money from us to hasten the transfer of lands. That’s relatively small, but no thanks. I’d rather wait for 5 more days than burn my soul in hell for 5000 years.
Start with small things. As for me I use less curse words (although I used *ss and hell again here). I listen less of rock music. Poetic lyrics, yes, but sometimes words are just too much. I give myself a dose of The Master’s Touch DZFE 98.7 every morning. They play classical music, the likes of Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven. And listen to Dr. Salem’s 5-minute talk on the Word of God around 7:25 in the morning. You surely would get yourself nodding in agreement, and feel lighter before you leave home. I still watch the 6:30 news. Exhaustion on political issues and people will never be an excuse for me to not know what’s been happening. After all, it’s my country--- and I will never permit them to manipulate everything inside it. But once you start feeling really bad, switch to other channels. I advise you go to QTV 11’s The Sweet Life with Lucy Torres-Gomez. They talk about nice topics and contain no nonsense. But be sure to switch back to the news. Sabi nga ni Baz Luhrmann, LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY ONCE, BUT LEAVE BEFORE IT MAKES YOU HARD. LIVE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ONCE, BUT LEAVE BEFORE IT MAKES YOU SO SOFT. It’s just always about compromise.
This has been my longest entry ever. I just hope and pray you stay positive. Good day. #
My class notebook is simply my best outlet in terms of art, and a statement of who I am. Unlike most students who choose their notebook design from the wide range that National Bookstore offers, I pick out my own and reinvent my old binder with recycled materials. Every start of the semester, I make sure I come up with the neatest blueprint which best suits my mood. I cut clippings, nice and striking words, pictures, and other stuff from newspapers and magazines, and lay them out meticulously on the four sides of the binder. And by the way, I got that binder free from a Rob department store during my first year in college, and I promised myself I’d use it until I graduate. So literally the only expense I make is for the new leaves for my notes, which cost me only about P70 per sem (colored dividers included). Really cool.
When I was in first year I remember my cover was from the DSWD advertisement in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. The picture depicted about 4 or 5 rectangular closed fists in different heights reaching upwards in a plain background. There was nothing but black and red behind the words: ANG SAGOT SA KAHIRAPAN AY REBOLUSYON, with every word about half an inch in size. The catch is that below are the smaller letters which spelled, SA PAG-IISIP AT PAMAMARAAN. That was nice, really. Inside, I cut out and pasted my brothers’ old blueprints from his engineering classes back in college. I wrote some Sanskrit characters on the small envelope for papers, and there you have it.
On my second year I cut stuff from EDSA Revolution’s memorabilia, like sepia pictures of Doy Laurel and Ninoy Aquino and his funeral.
On my third year I wanted to have it all white. I covered the whole thing with an inverted poster of Britney Spears (free from Pepsi) so one can see only the white part. Then at the bottom rightmost corner I simply put a small black and white version of Rock Ed’s poster on their MRT gig series for Human Rights Day with a picture of one of my favorite contemporary Filipino writers, Lourd de Veyra of Radioactive Sago Project (RASP). I filled the other sides with small Rock Ed stickers. Inside, I printed the lyrics of RASP’s “Alaala ni Batman,” divided it to the number of subjects, and pasted them on every divider. Each course code, I wrote in Braille. Of course it was not embossed.
Just last sem I asked from my dad if I can have the envelope from one of the letters UNICEF sends him annually. It looked really gruesome. Printed on its dirty brown paper were the scripted words, WILL YOU BE ABLE TO SLEEP ON THIS SHEET OF PAPER? Funny how people reacted whenever they read that: Si Ayn, nangongonsiyensiya. Good they know. Haha. Inside I cut and pasted the black and white pictures of the street children and UNICEF’s contact numbers, which were all enclosed in the same letter. At the back part I placed the back part of my brother’s Smashing Pumpkins’ Rotten Apples album. No pictures on dividers, this time; and no foreign language, too.
But this sem was the funniest of them all. It was already Monday and I still haven’t though of the design (I usually do it a week before classes start). At first I decided I’d retain the konsiyensiya factor for the cover part, and the album cover at the back. But something in me was strongly telling and actually yelling at me to just forget about the first sem and move on to my last. I usually state my angst on my notebook, if you might have pictured, but angst this time was of no issue anymore. It was very symbolic. As I was tearing everything from front to back, I was slowly relieved, as if I was letting go of something I have been heavily burdening myself with lately.
Knowing that I actually had no recycled materials left anymore, I rummaged desperately through my old things. I had no choice. I don’t want to go to class without a notebook, or with a temporary one. As much as I wanted to keep my Weekly Asian Wall Street Journals in file, they were the only materials I have left. And so without a doubt I cut whatever interesting words and figures I could. I covered the whole binder with white once more (this time inverted posters from Bench with artistas. Haha), and pasted all the stuff. So the theme for this last sem was simply Wall Street. The big words (about 1”X1” each letter) RUN THIS WAY became my cover headline gotten from a fitness article. With it were two solved crossword puzzles, whose answers were of the previous week’s, an a long sentence written in really small letters: KNOWLEDGE IS VITAL, BUT UNDERSTANDING HELPS YOU PERFORM MUCH BETTER, from WSJ’s ad.
Inside, I placed a black and white picture of a poignant scene with two persons in a serene place. Above where the words: WHERE EMBRACES LINGER A LITTLE LONGER, from an ad of a resort in Malaysia. Below is written: IT’S LIKE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN AWAY FROM HOME, BECAUSE LIFE IS ABOUT LIVING, from a condo ad.
At the back part I pasted an unsolved crossword puzzle, without the questions--- just the boxes. The back cover includes the question: WILL YOUR INVENTION NAVIGATE THE FUTURE? from the ad of Asia Innovation Awards 2007. Below it is a black and white picture of the first compass, invented by a Chinese. Beside it I halved and placed the words SUNGLASSES DO MORE THAT CUT THE GLARE on both sides, from a sunglass feature article; and below, it’s stated: BE ANYTHING BUT OBVIOUS, from a Tudor watch ad.
For the dividers I placed two liquor recipes, mojito, a Hawaiian mint liquor with the big words MINT CONDITION… DON’T CRUSH THE STEMS, and whisky with HONEY AND SPICE (and I don’t even drink. Weird.); park maps of Shanghai and Bangkok; food pictures from the fastest eating Japanese guy who ate hundreds of hotdogs in 5 minutes with the words FAST FOOD; and the Malaysian mountaineer’s picture with the words THE LONGEST CLIMB.
Individually they were all meaningless. Gotten from mere ads and feature articles, they were all but lame on their own. But it was the neatest I ever made, and I didn’t mind staying up to 1:30 am before my first class at starts at 9am the following day. For me every word meant something, something I can’t probably explain, and something which offered me inner peace. For me every word is a poem in itself, a statement. Actually when Maika saw it, she laughed and asked me if it was me, since it was very POSITIVE.
Positive. For years I’ve been living in angst and all frustrations, particularly with the way our country’s system is being run by hoodlums. But lately I just got tired of doing it. I watched the 6:30 news the other day and I just wanted to vomit. I read the same headlines on the newspaper yet somehow it doesn’t anger me much like before. Does it come with age? I’m 20 and maybe I’m done with that stage. Maybe it’s time I concentrate on doing what I individually can do. My past writings were so much full of hatred; but when I look at it closely, all I do is arouse people with more anger. I expose the bad things they ought to know about the government, but don’t offer alternatives.
It’s tiresome. Being bitter and frustrated would lead you nowhere. It’s time we think positive, seriously--- because it’s always easier said than done. Wag na lang natin patulan. Indifference can work with these kinds of things. But please don’t get me wrong.
It’s really weird how I can stay calm despite the tension I’m feeling lately. Just yesterday the Registry of Deeds was asking P1000 bribe money from us to hasten the transfer of lands. That’s relatively small, but no thanks. I’d rather wait for 5 more days than burn my soul in hell for 5000 years.
Start with small things. As for me I use less curse words (although I used *ss and hell again here). I listen less of rock music. Poetic lyrics, yes, but sometimes words are just too much. I give myself a dose of The Master’s Touch DZFE 98.7 every morning. They play classical music, the likes of Chopin, Mozart, and Beethoven. And listen to Dr. Salem’s 5-minute talk on the Word of God around 7:25 in the morning. You surely would get yourself nodding in agreement, and feel lighter before you leave home. I still watch the 6:30 news. Exhaustion on political issues and people will never be an excuse for me to not know what’s been happening. After all, it’s my country--- and I will never permit them to manipulate everything inside it. But once you start feeling really bad, switch to other channels. I advise you go to QTV 11’s The Sweet Life with Lucy Torres-Gomez. They talk about nice topics and contain no nonsense. But be sure to switch back to the news. Sabi nga ni Baz Luhrmann, LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY ONCE, BUT LEAVE BEFORE IT MAKES YOU HARD. LIVE IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ONCE, BUT LEAVE BEFORE IT MAKES YOU SO SOFT. It’s just always about compromise.
This has been my longest entry ever. I just hope and pray you stay positive. Good day. #
