di umaakyat ang pagong sa puno

laurie: "...hindi namamatay. umaakyat sa puno."

joni: "e hindi naman umaakyat yung pagong sa puno e."

laurie: "nagju-jump..."

joni: "hindi rin...hindi din juma-jump yung pagong e. lumalakad lang yun!"

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ganitong klaseng rasyonal na pag-iisip ang nakasisira sa imahinasyon ng bata. kaya siguro di na ako makapagsulat ng magandang istorya, masyadong cause & effect, 1+1=2, black or white na ang takbo ng utak ko. hehehe. olats.

so that's why the titles are all in lowercase

remember when you were being taught to write, how the big letters differed from the small ones? remember the blue-red-blue lines that guided your hand to form the proper height of the letters, telling you not to go beyond the red when making baby a's? write properly, said teacher, start your sentences and proper nouns with capitals.

recall your writing exercises, when you were made to write rows upon rows of letters, until you got it right. your grandmother used to make the outlines of the letters using a very light-colored pencil, so that you wouldn't have to measure too much. at the end of the year you were awarded the 'best in penmanship' star, the red one. you grew up being known to be one of the best spelling-and-grammar rules followers in class. you know what doesn't belong in a sentence. you know when an 'h' is silent.

capitalization is serious business. all german nouns are capitalized. on government forms, you use block letters. you are quite good at doing big letters, except for one: your capital j looks like an s, so you always put a small serif at the top.

the literary people, you find out, are really the ones who break the rules. remember the numerous small i's and the not-capitalizing-at-the-beginning-of-sentences thing? they must be really great, you think, to be exempted from the rule. they are even praised and labelled geniuses for thinking of such a witty way to write 'i have something to say, but i am really insignificant' with that small i. postmodern, they say, postmodern.

capitalization is serious business. small letters are cute, fun, mellow, and easy on the eyes.

it's such a cool, unpretentious, humble way to write, you learn. the word processor automatically capitalizes all i's, and it annoys you. you go back and write it properly: "i". i, i, i. i am small. i is small. i am insignificant, but i have something to say.

a lesson in big & small

portraits

Tissa

Miel

Bunch

Igê

Tad

nobody bursts my bubble today

Deflate is on detable.

thursday morning

this is what happens when many blog-worthy events in my life occur at the same time: they don't make their way into my blog. i get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of what i want to say, and often my hands can't catch up with my mind, so i just say "it was ok". i'm not very good at summarizing really; as much as possible i include details ("show don't tell"), and i disappoint myself when i forget to say something. so it's either i babble a lot or i don't say much at all. sometimes i wish i could just stick a flash drive in my ear, upload narratives (and expletives if need be), and transfer to the computer. i guess no one's invented the technology yet. the cure for lazy writers who can't filter.

yes, there's makiling, ust, sigwada, home, cubicle, sigwada, and back home again. reports, encoding, walking, coffee, documentation, guessing, exhibits, waiting, cab rides, and thursdays.

hang up

"The place smelled of coffee, but he wasn't there, the coffee wasn't his."

tad boXed up

"After confessing this she was sure his response would begin with a T."