volting in

How come CW students are not so bonded with each other in their course (except perhaps with their own blockmates) and with other courses in UP Min? I mean, I don’t even know how many upperclassmen I have to recognize. Who are my upperclassmen for that matter. I found out that this certain upperclass person was actually in the BAE program just moments before the end of last semester.

What is with BAE students that they tend to be very quiet in noisy events? Like the Torch Night or the Freshmen Night for example. People would be surprise to see BAE students come up with their cheer. Nada in the cheerdance competition last Dula (not that I wanted to join, though).

Well, my point is this, aside from the Communication Arts students, isn’t it just right that BAE students should be expected to be another very social and interactive people in the campus. I mean seriously, creative writing is a social course. We are expected to socialize to learn things and write about them.

An alumnus mentioned that it has always been the trend among BAE students. Wow, what a trend for supposedly noisy people. It’s like we don’t exist. Should we really be like this?

No, we’re not nerdy. At least I think not. I mean, look at us! What’s so nerdy about us? I don’t mind being distant with other courses as long as we are not distant with our fellow coursemates. I can’t even name five freshmen in this course. No, we can’t always go out and find them and get to know them one by one. What a dilemma! My up-class are unapproachable and our freshies are hiding. How would I ever get to know them?

What happened to Tinta? It could actually be the only venue where BAE students of different batches could congregate and get to know each other. Nobody shows up though. What a shame. Sayang talaga!

The fact that I want to stress out is that everyone in this course should be united. We should get to know each other. Believe it or not, we need each other. We should string and paste each other up for us to work well.

Biologist gathers up with biologists, food technologists with food technologists, anthropologists with anthropologists. What’s keeping us from gathering with our own kind?

Let us build our own (aspiring) Creative Writers’ community right here in UP. It is imperative! We need to form our own Writer’s Block where only BAE people are recognized. Let Tinta work. I urge CW students to get along with each other.

A community of five students of different year levels is still a community. It is a start. Let’s volt in! Nyahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!

Wehehehe.. But I’m damn serious.

pirated papers

After I’ve graduated, I’m going to compile all my photocopied materials into one hardbound book. UP is indeed the University of Photocopying.

I just paid twenty pesos and fifty centavos for the next discussion in CL 122. Can you believe that? Oh come on! Look at the bulk of that reading. If you could just imagine a sheet with two pages of texts with font size eight or nine. For those aspiring to be CW students in UP Min next school year, I’m telling you, do yourself a favor and buy some magnifying glasses. Take care of your eyes.

Readings everywhere. I promise that one day CW students would pay twenty pesos to photocopy any of my works. Nyahahahaha! That would make me very happy indeed. Oh yeah! Very satisfied!

I appreciate the fact that CW students here in UP Mindanao are given the original primary text of the great critical thinkers of the 20th century, I really do. But I hope along with it, we’d be supplemented with texts that also pertain to the topic with English that we can actually understand.

No, we’re not stupid. It’s just that it really is hard for us to digest the thoughts of the thinkers in such formidable fashion. It’s actually quite embarrassing when you’re in this class where lively interaction is expected and you, despite your reading the assigned readings could not actually participate because of the uncertainty of whether or not you are to say the things in your mind or keep it there.

No, I’m not shy. People even look at me with distaste whenever I make a fool out of myself in class by bluffing my way out of a hard question. One thing I learned that people like me should know is that you can never bluff your way in a CW major class. Your little tricks in high school would work with CW faculty here in UP.

Everyday is a learning experience. And everyday we try to grasp whatever we might learn and get our tuition fees worth. I can’t believe I’m saying this.

But I’m grateful. It’s hard but it’s the way it is. What would you expect? It’s college, it’s suppose to be difficult especially with the school’s name with it. It has to be hard. It should be hard. Darn!

Creative Writing course would demand sacrifices. It irritates me whenever people from other courses scoff at our course saying that this is the easiest course in UP Min. No labs, no maths, no chemistry, no statistics and trigonometry needed. No majors in the freshmen year. They just don’t get it, do they?

They say that all we had to do is to write. They had to labor with the different mathematical principles and scientific standards in this world. We read and write. We do nothing but that. I then thought, what is the basis of a hard course. Any student would say that their course is the hardest, right? I don’t mind that, it’s saying that my course is the easiest that bothers me a lot. Especially if the person telling me that doesn’t know anything about creative writing.

Perhaps people should consider that fact that it all depends to the person taking up the course.

no jolens for me

“Kung saan ka magaling at kung saan ka masaya.”

My desire for writing has started immediately after I realized that I could write, which is when I was really really young. I was about four or five maybe when I kept on writing and writing anything I could think of. My parents didn’t have anything against that, on the contrary, they encouraged me. What drove them crazy is the fact that I wanted to write anything anywhere! Vandalism was like one of the first few long words I really understood.

Still I realized that drawing was easier than writing. My tiny little hands that time was more used to drawing circles and somewhat obscure impressions of Batman. I wanted to be one of the guys who made comics. My mom also encouraged me there but I’m still confused why she never bought me a single comic book.

On my elementary years, I developed a knack in reading. It became a religious hobby for me. I preferred those books with illustrations of course, but when I started reading those little paperback books like R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps and those kinds of books with the front cover as the only illustration, I accepted the fact that I could actually paint my own illustrations thanks to the writer’s effort. If you’re wondering why I didn’t play basketball or tigso or jolens or any other games kid’s that age should be playing is because of the fact that I was a very loser-ish kind of kid when it comes to those games. I don’t mind getting tired, really. It’s the fact of losing and being teased about it that gets me.

In my high school years I accidentally stumbled to the greek mythology craze. I really don’t know why on those adolescent years, people seem to be very fascinated with them. I was quite a fan. Along with that my mother began to buy me anthologies of famous writers from Victoria Plaza’s book sales. I have actually read about Pip on Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and Ebenezer Scrooge in his A Christmas Carol. I’ve read about Rip Van Winkle, and boy! do I like his story. I’ve read Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and was very amazed on how his nonsense was very intelligent. But I didn’t understand the text that much at that time. I was familiar with the terms though.

In high school I wrote for our school paper but I wasn’t very good at journalism. My field there was feature writing. I had my share of minor awards. I never get to go to the nationals. Still, I never gave up writing as a hobby. And since I was very much exposed in short stories that time, I was somehow driven to write my first short stories on that period.

They weren’t good. They were actually horrible. I wrote about love relationships and fantasy as it was easier to have readers with those themes. I used psychological twists at the end of my stories which I used frequently. Eventually my “readers” found me predictable and I didn’t want that so I stopped writing at that time.

My mother wanted me to take up the nursing course like any other typical mothers at that time. They wanted me to pursue that course in hope of getting a chance to get abroad. My application to UP changed that. Despite the fact that she wanted me to pursue nursing, she was still blinded by the prestige of UP’s name. She wanted me to proceed to law afterward, though.

And so I ended up here. In a writing course, of course. I never did and never will (I hope) regret taking up this course. Beccy Anonuevo once told me over durian shakes with fellow friends at Iligan that her dad told her that in making decisions or choosing preferences (like courses) in life we must always consider two things: One, which choice you’re good at and two, which choice you’re happy at.

I’m glad I made the write (pun intended) choice.