something.

amid the chaos that is the CoViD-19 pandemic, a new blog. a digital journal of sorts. full of photos taken with my PaperShoot / Paper Shoot camera.

i call it PaperShoot Snaps.

oh hey world. how are you doing? i know it sucks right now, but we'll get through this.

stay safe everyone.

September 2018

Just thought I'd drop by for a quick update.

I've moved back to Manila!

But I still have to haul my stuff back from Baguio. They're currently still in the house I rented - fortunately it doesn't seem that the owner is interested in renting it out again anytime soon.

Family matters and health concerns will keep me in the capital, but I'm hoping I'll be able to visit the highlands often to see friends or to simply take in the cool breeze.

I'm thinking of retiring this decade-old blog and starting a new one.

Yesterday I was fixing some of my stuff and I found an old notebook I used for my 'morning pages' a while back. Reading it made me remember what I really want to write about, create, and do. A new blog will definitely be a good motivation to get things going.

To all of you who still check out the stuff I've written here, thank you for the love. Here's to new beginnings! :)

just checking in

if you follow me on social media, you may have learned i've moved into a new place. same city, different hill.

it's a lot different from where i stayed previously--a condo unit in a tourist area--and presents its own set of challenges (neighbors whose domestic noise--shouting kids and angry mom included--reach my ears much too often) and joys (other neighbors' cats that now have the run of the house, nearby sources of "real" food, a 24/7 jeepney line).

i've also changed jobs--i'm writing, researching, and editing around 83 percent of the time for work, and the remaining work-related hours are spent learning more about...everything. it's all good.

in june i attended a series of trainings for waldorf school educators. i was--still am--intent on volunteering in balay sofia, the first and so far only waldorf-style school in baguio. i haven't stepped foot in the school in nearly two months now. i'm working on my schedule so i can volunteer in the mornings. the ideal plan is to go for a walk/run or practice yoga (activities i've been missing terribly!), go to balay sofia, rest a bit at home/do errands/work on a project, then do my regular work.

the current rainy weather has made it hard for me to fully explore my new surroundings, but i will surely get to doing that in the coming weeks. my "walkdays with laurie" project hasn't been updated in months!

free time is spent napping/sleeping (haha yes), sketching, tidying up the house/making small home improvements, going out with friends (haha yes), thinking of projects to do (i have a few long-term project ideas in mind), and cooking! thanks to the house being equipped with an induction cooktop, i'm enjoying spending time in the kitchen (and stir-frying everything). i think i like my cooking. :P

that's about the gist of things. i'm an awful blogger now but i do plan on writing here a bit more often (if not regularly), not only for myself but for those of you who think my stuff here is worth reading. i've had other blogs before this and other blogs after this, but i guess this one really sticks. i realize this blog is close to 11 years old now--thank you for keeping it on your reading list!

here's a look back at my first post on this blog: sunog sa araw, written after coming from a community immersion in nueva ecija. i'll be going with a friend's group to visit another community soon, this time somewhere here in benguet, and i'm really looking forward to that. i'm already planning which camera to use and which sketchbook to bring.

i'll be sure to tell you how it goes!

Coffee Harvest Tour

Friends and family know how much I love coffee, and now I have a deeper appreciation for it and for the farmers who grow the coffee plants and process the fruit. I learned that it's hard, time-consuming work and I will never look at a cup of brewed coffee the same way again.

Yesterday, I joined the Coffee Harvest Tour in the community of Sayatan in Tublay, Benguet. Sayatan is a project site of the Cordillera Green Network, a Baguio-based environmental NGO. Since 2001, the organization has been working to help transform communities in the Cordillera into models of sustainable resource management.

Let's back up a little bit--how did I get to join the tour? Well, I was helping a friend look for a place to stay in, and Tala came to mind. I go to Cafe Yagam every now and then when I have friends over and see people coming and going from Tala, the guest house just below. I got curious about it but never pursued looking into it, until now.

I checked Tala's Facebook page and learned of its connection with the Cordillera Green Network, and also learned that the org conducts educational tours as part of its advocacy. Coming up was a Coffee Harvest Tour, and I signed up.

Aside from showing us how a cup of coffee is produced, the tour also gave participants that much-needed break from city life, and for the foreign students, the chance to practice their English. :)

The group met up at 7:30 (everyone was so punctual!) at Tala, where organizer Kanami gave a short orientation and where we introduced ourselves. It's a very 'international' group comprising Filipino, Japanese, Taiwanese, Korean and Vietnamese coffee lovers. When we were all set, we climbed aboard CGN's jeepney and off we went.

When we arrived at Sayatan, we were introduced to the "coffee queens," the ladies who manage the community organization. They told us about the CGN's advocacy as well as coffee's journey from farm to table. They also showed the proper way to harvest coffee cherries to make sure the plant bears fruit again.

Orientation and introduction at Tala.

A quick stopover to buy snacks

Bread, bread and more bread

Toploading ftw

Ate Lily explaining the process of how a cup of coffee is made

Pick just the fruit--avoid taking the stem along with it!

Before harvesting: hot coffee!

Sweet sweet dog

Coffee plant

Looks like Christmas

Just pick the ripe cherries (the red/red-orange ones)

The cold climate makes Benguet conducive to growing arabica coffee

Trying out guava

Picking coffee cherries...until the ants came (the fruit is sweet)

Coffee seedlings at the nursery ready for planting! The community sells these for Php 7.50 each.
It takes around three years for the plants to bear fruit.

At the old nursery (they're preparing a net to cover the seedlings)

This view.

Why did the chicken (and her kids) cross the road?

To say hello to the grazing cow, of course!

Here's Johnny making sure our meal's cooking well

Pinikpikan!

After lunch it was time to try pulping (where the fruit pulp is separated from the bean) and hulling, where the remaining mucilage is removed from the seed. After pulping, the beans undergo wet fermentation for 24 hours, washed and then dried before hulling.

Forgot to take a photo of the (manual) pulping machine, but here's the output: the pulp at left and the seed or bean at the right. 

The beans are first pounded to remove the mucilage or hull from the bean

Separating the hull from the bean

Separating the dried hull from the beans is challenging at first, but once you've mastered the movement, it's beautiful to watch.

 

More hulling

After sorting the beans, these are roasted for an hour. While there's a roasting machine that can get it done in 20 minutes,it's in another town and for the purpose of the tour, a kawali can do the job just fine. 

Almost done! Heavenly smells all around.

Ready to be ground up!

These beans will be grounded, ready for brewing

Hanging out with "Sweet Dog" (we don't know his real name)

And done! (Don't you just love these cups)

I had a great time learning about coffee and meeting new folks. Thanks to Tala - Kanami and Sevy - and the CGN as well as the community of Sayatan and the women farmers who showed us about how coffee makes its way into our cups.

Fact: To make 450 grams of roasted coffee beans, you'll need around 4,000 cherries. A cup is usually brewed from 10 grams of coffee, so you'll need around 90 cherries for just this one cup.

And that, my friends, is why you should savor each and every sip.

Speed Ball Training with Siri (Mongki as coach)

Who needs expensive kitty toys when you have a plastic cup, some string and puffy balls lying around?

scared

some work-related adjustments are opening up opportunities for me to write again, and i'm scared as sh*t.

as the few readers of this blog can surely see, i haven't posted anything in months. i meant to, it's not for lack of topics, but perhaps a lack of will. and confidence.

the kind of work that i do (i currently copy-edit stories for an online publication) requires me to be strict when it comes to factual accuracy and as much as possible, be perfect in all things grammar. i'm no grammar nazi. i make mistakes myself, and i think i've learned to just ignore the errors i see in other people's work, especially if writing isn't really part of their profession (i quietly judge them sometimes though, but usually just the ones who say they're reading this book and that, or watching this show and that, because hey if you're really an avid reader/viewer, you should have picked up proper english by now - snooty me).

i envy them sometimes - how they are able to come up with words to express themselves, tell the interwebz about their life without minding whether a particular piece conforms to ap style.

i've grown more conscious about word use, but in return i've lost confidence in my own writing style. i've come to believe that the way i write has not really improved. my working vocabulary is still the same, i haven't really incorporated new descriptive words. things are still pretty simple in this corner of the blogosphere.

i'm afraid to let loose, afraid i don't really have anything interesting to say.

i've been looking at writing prompts online to somehow get me started with writing again, but i find myself uninterested. or i begin to think, that's a long story, and i don't have the time patience to sit and write that down.

in january, a friend and i went for a day hike up mt. ulap, which is just around 40 minutes away from the city. he pitched the idea of a collaborative project about our little adventure: he would take photos, and i could write about the experience. it's july and i haven't really written a word. i have some phrases written down on a few sheets of paper - my impressions of the place, the things that interested me the most. but i couldn't do the colorful captions, the ones you usually read in travel sites describing a place.

that's nothing new for me, really. i've always struggled with the "show, don't tell" part of writing a narrative. i don't think i have the right verbal creativity needed for travel blog-worthy descriptions. or perhaps this is just me coming up with excuses. i've always wanted to write about the things i've done, the places i've visited, the stuff i've learned. but when i see all these other people already writing about the same stuff, i lose heart.

now i realize i'm forgetting the whole point.

writing, like sketching, is an activity that lots of other people may be doing, but you all come up with different outputs. one's experience is different from another's. there may be similarities (in subject and location), but the way you tell it - the way you express yourself through lines and words - is unique to you. your own perspective, and your own way of showing who you are.

i should really listen to myself more often.

---

but that's when you're writing for yourself.

i'm scared about writing for something else. will i be able to pitch good story ideas? will i be able to pull a story off without sounding like a self-absorbed b*tch?

i guess i'll never really know unless i try (again).

wish me luck (and discipline)!

what ifs

this afternoon, in anticipation of amazon's "the man in the high castle", i downloaded the e-book version of the philip k. dick novel the tv series is based on. i wasn't much of a pkd fan growing up (i think i tried reading one of his books once but stopped after the first few pages - now i think i might have been too young to appreciate it), so i had no idea about it, until i worked on an article about the tv adaptation this morning.

i haven't started reading the book, but from what i've absorbed online, the alternate history presented in the novel goes a bit like this: ww2 lasted until 1947, and germany and japan won the war. it's a great what if, and i find myself interested to know the answer.

it led me to think about imagine more what-if scenarios, nothing that historic though, just everyday stuff, the kinds of stuff i've thought about ever since i was a kid daydreaming the day away. it's how i entertain myself and keep myself amused, i guess.

here's one.

i ordered a burger two burgers from the nearby burger shop before it closed. as i waited outside for my burgers to cook, i saw a neighbor's cherry-red chevrolet impala heading up the street, homeward. that car's pretty famous around these parts, very recognizable.

so. what if.

what if i asked the owner/driver if i could take a photo of the car, and he would say of course, and i would introduce myself as a neighbor. and because i was genuinely interested in the car, he would invite me to have a look inside.

(a friend and i have already poked our noses inside once when the car was parked out on the street and we were passing by and the windows were down and no one was around.)

then he would do more - he would get out from the driver's side and invite me to get behind the wheel to drive the car the rest of the way home. and then i would say i haven't driven a car in ten years, to which he would say it's only for a few meters. and then i would agree, and somehow not crash the car. and then i would be able to say i drove an impala.

in that what-if scenario, the owner's name is fred and he is in his mid-40s.

seems far-fetched, yes, i don't think anyone would trust me and be all nice just like that, just like that. this what-if tale makes me sound like a naive chit, but then again, i'm sure there are nice folks like the guy in the scenario. you read about them all the time - about the niceness of strangers and such. could be dangerous to think of as true all the time irl, but  sometimes you get the feeling that something or someone is good, or at least won't do you harm. it's sad when the world thinks the default is that people are inherently evil and being good comes as a surprise. anyway, i digress -

but i guess that's how my brain works sometimes.

i think about these what ifs during quiet moments, and it's good creative exercise for the brain that uses the logical side most of the time. thinking of these what ifs may give some people either hope or a reason to be depressed, but most of the time i just have a fuzzy feeling about it being a story.

it may be why i'm drawn to fiction, why i can relate with amelie and her unfounded fears about the reason why nino hadn't shown up yet, why i think there's more to a story than what's written on a page or acted out in a scene. it may be why i like to be quiet and simply watch people sometimes. i don't think i fantasize too much - i'm still pretty sane (haha yeah) and know when the stuff in my mind really happened and when they're just the products of a very active (and creative, if i may say so) imagination.

what if i hadn't gone out this afternoon? i wouldn't have seen the impala, i wouldn't have come up with that scenario. i would probably have thought of something else.

i missed this kind of writing, the not-thinking-too-much kind. should do this more often to loosen up before/during/after copy editing. doesn't make much sense as i should be strict with following rules, but if it works for me, it works for me.

something short

hmm. i did say i would try to write again. if i could post mundane stuff to my social network accounts, why not here?

or, if i could refrain from posting mundane stuff, why not post something with more value here?

has everything become too blah to post about? certainly not.

are there things i would rather keep to myself? yes.

i don't even keep a physical journal anymore.

funny, because i've been telling other people to write.

to say i am frustrated (or annoyed?) with myself is an understatement.

--

met new friends, hung out with old ones, had my family over

complained about slow internet

--

the good news, my sis brought me three of my film cameras

the bad news, i have no idea where to have films developed here

--

where to travel to next year? 

bffs in heaven

my heart breaks over losing two of our beloved dogs a week apart. i had to stop working for a really good cry.

will always love and miss you both, Holly and Frankie. have fun playing in the clouds and eating everything you desire. maybe someday we'll all play together again.

Five Days In

I have settled on a routine. Well, sort of.

Upon waking up (at around 5-6, to give myself enough time to prepare for work), I put water in the electric kettle (Made in China, but it's holding up really well)

Open the windows. Shiver

Depending on my mood (or level of laziness), I make coffee: instant 3-in-1 (Nescafe classic), mix-mix (I got matching jars for coffee, cream, and sugar), or brewed (I have to go to the market to get more grounds; what I have with me now is an already-opened pack of Monk's Brew I took from the kitchen when I went "shopping" (as my mom calls it, haha) at home

When it's not coffee, it's tea, and I am ever thrilled to use a glass teapot my bff Susa bought for me. I brought my whole stash: hojicha green tea from Japan, rhododendron tea from Nepal, fruit tea from China (but bought from LoyalTea), Ceylon tea from er, the UK (but was a gift to my mom), Charbrew's blueberry tea, CBTL's cherry blossom tea, and yes, even some herbal dietary tea for those erm, bloated days

I think of what to have for breakfast: cereals (what to do with leftover milk? I have no fridge--oh yeah, powdered milk), oatmeal, bread and cheese, omelette (thank goodness for oven toasters with a 'grill' at the top, and for another bff Dash who gave me the means to get it as a housewarming gift

I check my mobile everything, turn on my laptop, panic at the thought of making a mistake (sometimes yeah), and repeat to myself, "you're learning, you're learning"

Look out the window and determine weather. Have breakfast. Wash the dishes, brush teef

Work, get nervous about talking to Australian colleagues (I'm a better writer than a speaker), resume work, stare out window at birds

Wash the itty bitty things you cannot, or would rather not, have another person wash. Pray they dry within 2 days

Take a bath, pray the towel dries the next day

By midmorning, or noon, or a little after that, head out to a nearby carinderia (tourist price!) to buy my lunch and dinner. Choose from among the ten or so viands, ask for a half order and a cup of rice that costs an absurd Php15 for a total of Php50

Buy other stuff from the minimart a few meters away. Stuff like cheese and mayonnaise sachets, because I have no fridge

Upon getting back to my home|office, put half of the rice and viand in separate containers, and put the rest on a plate. Eat my lunch. Wash the dishes

Stretch and relax a bit, check my social networks

If work permits, run errands (buy something I need from the big store, pay bills) or walk around, because I'm here

Go back to work

Have a snack. And tea

Make a list of the stuff I need to do the following day

Reheat the food I bought earlier, maybe do something different with it (like add mayonnaise, or team it up with instant mushroom soup). Eat my dinner. Wash the dishes (I really like washing the dishes)

Read, study for work, do stuff for Urban Sketchers Philippines

Have hojicha or fruit tea. Brush teef, wash face, apply moisturizer

Close the windows

Prepare for bed: socks, sweater, fluffy blanket, bonnet (because cold hair). If necessary, set alarm (my body clock wakes me up at 6am no matter what time I went to bed; the alarm is only necessary when I need to wake up earlier)

Say a prayer of thanks

And look forward to a nice dream.

I've fixed things up a bit since I fully moved in, but here you go--my little space.
(I love everything about it, especially the natural light!)

sunny mornings

...and misty afternoons. This is the view when I look out my window to the right.

  

Things I have yet to do, things I am looking forward to doing this weekend:

• Explore my neighborhood, establish possible running/jogging/walking routes
• Sketch
• Do some cardio
• Go to market for fruit and coffee
• Sunday siesta after church
• Write for myself

Change is good, yes?

Trip Sketches: Sta. Ana, Cagayan

A very late post about spending ten days in beautiful Sta. Ana in Cagayan at the northernmost tip of the Philippines.

I had been feeling restless and troubled close to the end of summer this year. I felt I needed a change of scenery, and so I was glad a friend invited me over to spend a couple of weeks at his family's vacation resort in faraway Sta. Ana, Cagayan. I needed a break, and figured since my job lets me work anywhere, I grabbed the opportunity. I spent ten days staring out to sea, playing with my friend's dogs, working on learning modules, walking and jogging by the beach (and picking up trash along the way), eating lots of fresh fish and veggies, swimming in an infinity pool, taking photos of ridiculously magnificent sunsets, and of course, sketching.

I sat across this boy's family in the bus during the trip up north. We got stuck in traffic near the border of Nueva Vizcaya and Isabela, and, with my laptop, phone, tablet, and powerbank batteries all close to drained, I sketched instead. After getting off the bus in Tuguegarao, I took a van for the three-hour trip to Sta. Ana. Because of that traffic, I was on the road for 21 hours!

On my first morning there, I sat on the sea wall and observed the fishermen coming home. I found out that they fished mostly for 'espada' or beltfish.

The view of the sea. In between writing tasks I simply zone out look at the bright blue water.

The resort has two pools: an infinity pool and a kiddie pool. Guests were coming in the day I drew this, so the staff were busy preparing umbrellas and chairs for lounging in.

I tried to draw the usual mode of transport while waiting for mass. It's actually a motorcycle fitted with a body with two wheels behind it. It can fit around 6-8 passengers (I think).

The church where I attended mass. I had a blast trying to figure out perspective with this one.

The pool pump house and one of the boys cleaning the pool. I'm really trying hard to practice drawing people ;)

One of the beach cottages in the resort. It's fun just staying there and taking the breeze in. On the right, the resort's water tank and a few random sketches and brush marks.

We would sometimes see large vessels traveling across the water. My friend has a telescope, so one day he took it out and we observed the coming and going of boats and barges.

One day I borrowed his telescope and took a look at the fishing community again. I've never sketched using a telescope before, and I had fun!

For these sketches, I used pencils, colored pencils, a brush pen, and watercolors. I drew on a Derwent sketchbook that's not really meant to be used for wet media, but I don't mind. ;) There are days when I feel my sketching's awful, and there are days when I feel good about them. Oh well--practice makes better! 

That trip up north jump-started big changes, of which I'll tell you about in another post. ;) I'm really glad for the support of family, friends, and colleagues who understand my need to "go" and refresh, so thank you--you know who you are.