Valzilla

Cooking in exile

Some people were born with an instinct for cooking, like my Tita Gigi who can cook just about anything and make it taste SO GOOD (hotdogs! kare-kare! sinigang!), my Auntie Nita with her delightful Hokkien meals (i.e. fried lumpias, sweet & sour pork, and the like), or Turtle, for whom baking is a birthright (we're a fan of her scones, Shepherd's pies, brownies).

Unlike them, I wasn't born clasping a spatula in my hand. In the kitchen, I've always had to exert a little more effort and practice a bit more caution. But I can't be kept away: cooking is everyday magic- you mix different ingredients of various compositions over low/medium/high heat, and, voila, those things fuse and become a plate of something! These days, post-Sem2 deadlines, I find myself poring over cooking blogs like my favorite, Casa Veneracion, and selecting recipes to try. The things I'm planning to make will be nothing fancy. Just simple, healthy stuff.

Sem 2 Meals
One of the best gifts of leaving home and living on my own is that it forced me to cook. No more just imagining how to make recipes work; living alone forced me to move beyond epic cooking failures (the horror of charcoal-ed kropeks) and just try again. This sem, my kitchen experiences have involved figuring out ways to vary cooking a specific ingredient, how to incorporate cupboard items to not let them go to waste, and how to appropriate local products/ choose substitutes.

In the spirit of documenting some cooking milestones of the sem, I made...

1. Chicken adobo -- nothing that will change anyone's world by any means, but edible! Edible and decent enough to tide me through bouts of homesickness.
2. Sinigang -- let me emphasize that Filipino dishes are very intimidating. I remember trying out sinigang in Japan and it was just too bland! Since I didn't want to waste the mixes I brought in KL, I decided to give it another try. It wasn't as hard as I thought, whew. Being able to produce not bad bowls of sinigang and adobo amounts to personal feats to me.
3. Ginataang tilapia w/ chili -- memorable because it taught me the how tos of cooking with gata and chili

4. Curry Chicken, Malaysian-style -- what I will make in the Philippines when I start missing Malaysia (it's bound to happen, it is)
5. Steamed fish, resto-style-- the most important part being, I learned how to make a steamer work. It sounds dumb that I had no clue how to steamer work so thankgod, I learned. Cooking steamed fish is like hitting two goals in one: learning to steam and finding healthier ways of preparing food.
6. Korean pea sprouts-- cooking for one is indeed an approach and pea sprouts are especially appropriate for this purpose.

Cooking is tiring. At some point (the whole of May), I released myself from the burden of prepping meals to have time to read for and write my papers. Now that I'm relatively deadline-free, it's back to the kitchen, folks.

I probably save half the amount I spend when I buy, so that's great for my limited budget. But the most important reason to cook is so I end up like a Murakami character (kidding! haha! his protagonists always cook); the most important thing is that cooking lets me eat healthier. One can only eat the same hawker-plied foods (or fastfoods) a few times in one month.

On to more cooking adventures and going after those kitchen aspirations! =)

"Hello, Mr. Spock"

Some of the things I've been getting a kick out of recently

• the similarities between programming and linguistics lexicon
• cryptic crosswords as penalty
• Dr. Uhura's profession and, well, Spock
• conversations about faith, the Bible, Christianity which are as easy as they're complex (if you think this part is corny, you can quietly exit the page, no judgment)

:)

Happy birthday, AiyoRach!

Tambay w/ my favorite chick at our favorite Pasig Starbucks

MNL Corporate Woman celebrates another year. Now, I've never known anyone who worked as hard, looked as cute, and drank as much Starbucks Frappe! But the thing about her is, she's always crazyfun even while she has her eyes on the prize -- and she's got her loved ones' backs, always, making sure to share each and every blessing. We're all oh-so-lucky to have her, yes? YES! 

Happy birthday, AiyoRach! I wuv you!

Manila where my monsters hid

After reading (Tita) Angela Stuart-Santiago's commentary on Dan Brown's quip in his latest book about Manila being the "gates of hell" (a logical choice, given the Catholic church's anti-RH stance and the oligarchy that the Philippine government is, as the post says), I remembered how as a kid I would tag along with my Papa to his office in Zacateros, one of the narrow streets that crossed Ongpin. We took the jeepney from Roosevelt to Sta. Cruz, got off at Avenida, and crisscrossed our way through the bakeries, hardwares, electronic stores, etc. until we reached his office. As a 5-year-old, seeing diced hopias made in front of you was a treat you tire of less easily than the diced hopias. Let's not even talk about the smell of chestnuts found everywhere in those streets-- holygee, the taste of chestnuts won't hold a candle to their smell! Then there's the incomprehensible chatter that was probably a mix of Hokkien, Tagalog, Bisaya; told me early on that the world city I inhabited could not be a quiet (or peaceful) one. There were shop keepers (some who my Dad knew), coffee shops (including one which he frequented), noodle houses (wonderful). There were also beggars at the foot of the LRT and barkers in the perimeter of Sta. Cruz church; early exposure to the fact that while Papa and I did not enjoy many luxuries ("middle class" would be pushing it), there were families, men, children with fates worse than us.

There were also the batang kalye (streetkids) of Zacateros who were my age and who became a sort of barkada. When I was still allowed to play with them, these kids took me to their haunts, streets alleys narrower than that where Papa's office stood, and showed me alleys cracks on the wall where they lived. Oh, I remember trying my first smoke somewhere in Ongpin, my Zacateros barkada and I saw a lit cigarette on the street, picked it up and took turns puffing. I was so proud of myself that afternoon, I hurriedly ran back to Papa and told him what I just did. After that I was only permitted to wave at them. Eventually in shame when they’ll come around to “pick me up” and I wasn’t permitted to go anymore, I just hid at the back part of the office. Now in writing, I kind of wish that my 5 year-old self recognized that what was novel to me was everyday life for them.

Early exposure to middle class guilt and the warfare that exists in the everyday, salamat Manila.

Eventually all those afternoons I insisted on tagging along because I was Papa's buntot and suffered from serious separation anxiety when I'm not with him was soon no longer. One day I just refused to go because I had started having recurring dreams of Sta. Cruz, getting lost in its streets, taken by "bad people" like those in the movies, etc. etc. 

Some 15+ years later and the nostalgia that happened to old Manila by way of food tours and heritage walks and the city morphed into a "cultural adventure". I spent one birthday doing that, out of nostalgia “for a part of Manila I grew up.”

When peering through the lens of culture, it’s so easy to edit the picture. Manila offers those dumplings you cannot have elsewhere in the city, sniff chestnuts oh-so-easily, and have the best bowl of noodles, but also in Manila is where the warfare of the streets is ever alive, persists, persisted, a continuing sad tragic backdrop.

I wonder what the duo Mayor Erap/ VM Isko has planned. Having come from the streets themselves, let's see?

I remember showing Zacateros to Turtle and Elephant a few years ago; I was hoping one of the Zacateros kids will recognize me, give my shoulder a tap and say "kalaro kita dati." No such luck. Middle class peeps, tough is our luck, but luck is tougher for most of these Manila electorate.  

Busy April

Approaching the middle of the month and school/work/rakets have been piling up! Not complaining, not complaining (oh but I sometimes do. I just pray that even when I do complain, I remember to be thankful).

Before I list the highlights, here are 2 poems, for those "different wells within your heart" (Hafiz) and to, this time, loving with all of your intelligence (A. Rich).



Splittings (Adrienne Rich)

1.
My body opens over San Francisco like the day-
light raining down     each pore crying the change of light
I am not with her     I have been waking off and on
all night to that pain     not simply absence but
the presence of the past     destructive
to living here and now     Yet if I could instruct
myself, if we could learn to learn from pain
even as it grasps us     if the mind, the mind that lives
in this body could refuse     to let itself be crushed
in that grasp     it would loosen     Pain would have to stand
off from me and listen     its dark breath still on me
but the mind could begin to speak to pain
and pain would have to answer:

                                                       We are older now
we have met before     these are my hands before your eyes
my figure blotting out     all that is not mine
I am the pain of division     creator of divisions
it is I who blot your lover from you
and not the time-zones nor the miles
It is not separation calls me forth     but I
who am separation     And remember
I have no existence     apart from you

2.
I believe I am choosing something new
not to suffer uselessly     yet still to feel
Does the infant memorize the body of the mother
and create her in absence?     or simply cry
primordial loneliness?     does the bed of the stream
once diverted     mourning     remember wetness?
But we, we live so much in these
configurations of the past     I choose
to separate her     from my past we have not shared
I choose not to suffer uselessly
to detect primordial pain as it stalks toward me
flashing its bleak torch in my eyes     blotting out
her particular being     the details of her love
I will not be divided     from her or from myself
by myths of separation
while her mind and body in Manhattan are more with me
than the smell of eucalyptus coolly burning     on these hills

3.
The world tells me I am its creature
I am raked by eyes     brushed by hands
I want to crawl into her for refuge     lay my head
in the space     between her breast and shoulder
abnegating power for love
as women have done     or hiding
from power in her love     like a man
I refuse these givens     the splitting
between love and action     I am choosing
not to suffer uselessly     and not to use her
I choose to love     this time     for once
with all my intelligence

---


Some Fill with Each Good Rain (Hafiz)

There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep for that.

In one well
You have just a few precious cups of water,

That “love” is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.

Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger,

Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife

Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.

There are different wells within us.
Some fill with each good rain,

Others are far, far too deep
For that.

Kristel.

Events that transpired in the Philippines last March was somewhat taxing, soul-wise. There were the events in Lahad Datu, there was the tragic suicide of a UP Manila student. The last one hit pretty hard. If there's one thing the Kristel Tejada tragedy reminded me is this: that activism is still relevant and very necessary. And that we in our middle class chairs owe it to the Kristel Tejadas in the Philippines, of the University of the Philippines, to speak out and guard against unfair administrative policies.  

What Dr. Seuss said:

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” (The Lorax) 

Caring is tiring, yes, but if we want things to change there's no other recourse.

cupboard inventory

Love is a grilled cheese sandwich, layered with different kinds of cheeses and butter. It's an exotic Mexican burger (with a name you already forgot) given a Pinoy twist (with pandesal) stuffed with chorizo and beans, an ingredient bought and cooked the first time. There I guess, love makes you dare. 

But also, love is planning the week's meal, a somewhat elaborate go/grow/glow breakfast, that surprise dinner you may/ may not botch up. Love is scrambled eggs, fritata, canned tuna, caramel popcorn. Love is never getting tired of  rinsing rice, at least thrice, and sticking to that 1:2 rice & water ratio.

The aspirational academic article

Certain researchers even when it's academic articles they're writing can impress. Reading such article now. The points are well-organized and the laying down of concepts equally superbly structured. It doesn't try to drown with information. Instead, it builds up its case, piling one clearly stated idea on top of another, and then revealing, at the perfect moment, the argument driven at or connecting the concept on hand to a theory, like a knot, yes, but more accurately like a firm ribbon.

That it keeps the discussion meaty proves that "critical" can be engaging.

Yep, "academic" or "serious" writing doesn't have to be insufferable, filled to the coffers (rhymes with coffin!) with gobbledygookterms.

One day, one day, I shall conquer this Everest. (Everest! Serious kasi eh.)

Roti, kopi, & a spot under the shade

Had a dream this morning that I was back in Ilo-ilo, this time as a student of UP Miagao. I woke up, annoyed and not really wanting to get out of bed. I wanted to sleep the whole day away. I wanted my self back in familiar QC. Just like the last week of August/ first few weeks of September 2012, I craved so much for home, surrounded by my friends, family, and boyfriend. I didn't want to be a foreigner passing through, I wanted a permanent (wonderful) job, I wanted weekends with said people above. 

But there were errands to run. And no, unlike August/ September of last year, this country is not completely foreign anymore. 

Yesterday, Ysa posted this verse, Matthew 7: 7-8,

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."



So rather than seriously give in to the strong urge to run back home, I've decided to just storm heaven's gate with some seriously loud knocking and asking, to find the motivation to push through with whatever's left of my course, to receive the courage to once again embrace the unfamiliar and the fortitude to be away. 

Rather than dream Monday off, I finished my errand and, on a whim, got on the train to see the Petronas Towers. Took out some MYR6 (Php75) and bought a kopi-roti (coffee bun) and kopi (coffee) set from RotiBoy (you should try it, fellow stranger). Found an empty bench in the park behind the towers with a full view of the dazzling twin buildings to tell myself you're in Kuala Lumpur now. Be present where you are. 

While the Petronas doesn't really do anything for me, that park with its tourists, benches, fountains, wading pool, and trees has feels like a refuge I can hide in, a safe place in this city filled with unfamiliarity. I made a pact with myself to visit it more often in my last 4 months here. And yes, the pact also includes just taking in whatever life/ the heavens decide to throw my way.

Sitting in the bench in that park, praying, I've come to realize that the Lord has my back, as He always does.  I, an earthly daughter, am welcome to come to Him, to run to Him. There are lessons to be learned in the coming months. There's a blessing hidden in being on my own, such as learning how to be more balanced and how to manage my time well. The blues are within, nagging at me. But then on the outside are the fountains flirting from across my bench and I just have to see that it's a wonderful warm day to be out and that it's good to be here. The facts are that the roti and kopi combo was a knockout, the sky is clear, friends from Manila/family/boyfriend are virtually present and though it appears I'm alone, it isn't like that really. Game face on once again, Malaysia.

Valdrada, the city reflected

Valdrada's inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action and its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, and this awareness prevents them from succumbing for a single moment to chance and forgetfulness.
(...)
At times, the mirror increases a thing's value, at times denies it. Not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. The twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face and gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face and gesture inverted, point by point. The two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them. 

"Cities and  Eyes," Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

The Perks of Being a Wallflower and my manic pixie (younger) self

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is such a good barkada film. I want to be friends with everyone Charlie made friends with, i.e. "trip" with Mary Elizabeth, talk about boys on random dates with Patrick, go to gigs with Sam.

The movie reminded me of Almost Famous, perhaps because they were both coming-of-age films and music played a crucial role in the re-shaping of the main characters' lives. I saw Almost Famous when I was younger though, i.e. I had just begun college, so I empathized greatly with the coming-of-age-feel of the movie: I was looking for my own heroines and manic Pixie girl Pennylane became, for quite sometime, the epitome of free spirit I had wanted to be. She was a proud groupie. She loved bravely. Plus, I was also trying to "discover" 60s-70s rock music and hippie culture then and Almost Famous was shown when the hippie era was relatively unexplored and not too cool yet (it was the pre-hipster period).

Manic Pixie Girl no more
Watching TPoBaW 12 years after Almost Famous provided an unanticipated evaluation of what happened to the projects Music/Hippie-ness & Manic Pixie-girl-slash-groupie I began when I was 18 and just starting college:
1) The music were ones I already like and have heard of (that's also thanks to the more contemporary playlist) 
2) I'd rather be manic Pixie-girl Sam (played magnificently by Emma Watson)'s ate and friend than her.

It's like seeing Paul Rudd play the teacher: an affirmation that I'm a lot older now, haha. I still love Pennylane's character, would hug her were we to meet in the fictional world and tell her how I did learn to love stupidly and bravely at the same time and take on life somewhat like she had, but I have other heroines now. And I think if I tell her this, she would say she understands where I'm coming from and tell me she knows what I mean. Then we would exchange knowing looks and trade stories about those trips we took, sometimes intentionally, other times because we had no choice, that forced us to stare at ourselves long and hard while asking "What the fuck is wrong with you?" and then learning to forgive and accept who & how we are, and then getting on the bus/ the route/ the journey again, stumbling/learning/struggling/practicing this notion of self-love, and then have a silly laugh and say, "Those manic pixie girl days were fun times, right?"

I know that had my Pennylane-adoring me met Sam earlier, she would probably feel like she found a new bestfriend. To her I'd say Sam is right, things are gonna be better or at least, it could be better if you allow it to. Then I'd tell her to be excited. Knowing the younger me, she'd probably get so anxious and a little scared. I'd tell her it's going to be real, affecting, and world-&-self-changing but oh-so-worth the ride, she should stand up, embrace the uncertainty, and wave her hands in the cold air like Sam does in that tunnel scene.

What it is.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

James Baldwin in The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-fiction, 1948-1985 (via Brainpickings) 

Looking back and pushing onwards

Window, Penang 2012

I'm a little late in posting about 2012. Let me just say it was one of those years where a lot of learning was done, some still ongoing to this day. In contrast to those years where one lives out the questions (Rilke), 2012 seemed to be a year for living out the answers -- where answers don't always lead to heaving sighs of relief or keeping the heart spared from heartbreaks. While those heartbreaks did lead to more questions, they also forced me to look at other options.

So early on in 2012 some dreams were broken, but along the way new ones were created. Clarity came dressed in poetry (Mabi David's You are Here and Chingbee Cruz's Disappear), in creative non-fiction (Katrina Stuart-Santiago's Of Love and Other Lemons), in that Tres Marias (Lolita Carbon, Cookie Chua, Bayang Barrios + Cathy Go) gig, in the trips I was fortunate to have been able to take, and, of course, in the countless conversations with women friends (that band of sisterhood with Turtle, Rach, Joelle, Ina, Lira, Anjie, Checo, & honorary sisterhood member Froi). 

Work-wise, 2012 threw a curve ball too. Suddenly, I couldn't do corporate training full time anymore and no local training job opportunities were opening up. I did more freelancing work, like that part-time "journalist" post (I didn't even know you can do that), the (awesome) trip to Baguio and Banaue for Sidetrip, the Pampanga fieldwork to document the best practices of the communities under Mother Earth (the NGO)'s care, and the online teaching consultancy. 2012 placed me in situations where I wrote more in terms of word count and significance. I also learned, through work, another model of teaching English. All these proved of value to my going to Malaysia. 

Sticking to graduate school and staying here even when I so wanted to go home (newsflash: I fell in love) was a decision which is proving to be right. What I have learned about teaching language and all those other intricacies involved when learners try to acquire a second language were gifts, pure gifts. One of the highlights of the first sem was conducting an actual research on a Japanese English writer and writing a paper on his language use difficulty and coping strategies (will spare you from the very technical terms for now). That my professor was quite happy with how the paper turned out felt like an affirmation. It's nice to be imbued with a purpose, teehee.

Love and integrity were the keywords for 2012. Looking back, love and integrity were indeed poured on me as lessons and as rewards throughout 2012. I have those two in different measures and won't let go just yet. In continuation, 2013 will be about passion and consistency hopefully leading to abundance. 

Passion and Consistency.

Keywords for 2013. =)

2012: Places

• Hong Kong
• Banaue
• Pampanga
• Ilo-ilo
• Quezon City
• Kuala Lumpur/ Petaling Jaya

"And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another."

― Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces

Almost the end of sem

UM, MESL Program, 2012
Various photos taken by Sophie, Isai, Farhad, me

With one paper to go (due tomorrow!) and three exams left (that's for the first 2 weeks of January), the semester is nearing its close. There were many new friends made- acquaintances who, in the course of four months, had become people to hang out with, i.e. the three Chinese girls Sophie, Yan, & Luna who are making me realize the misconceptions I had about China, Iranians like Farhad and Elham whose presentation on the Iranian education curriculum remains one of the major eye-openers of the sem, pretty Thai girl Ang who I talk to about boy(friends; ours), shopping, and Thai food, local Adi who has kept me abreast about certain social dynamics in Malaysia, and the many many others who are not in that frame (like Rimi the Nigerian, Ali from Pakistan, and another local, Sara).

I learned a lot from the classes, too. Perhaps more on those when they've been wrapped up.

When the sem started, I was sort of regretting the decision to go. Something had just started and it was back home; at that time I was unsure leaving so soon was the smartest thing to do.

But, see, 4 months later, I didn't really lose any of the things I feared I would. On the contrary, many things were gained, i.e. new survival tactics, adjustment amo, second language learning approaches, etc.) Life has expanded, maybe not exponentially so, but there's expansion there, by at least an inch (or two). :)

Always the case for leaving

It's hard to go. It's scary and lonely and (...) half the time you'll be wondering why the hell you're in Cincinnati or Austin or North Dakota or Mongolia or wherever your melodious little finger-plucking heinie takes you. There will be boondoggles and discombobulated days, freaked-out nights and metaphorical flat tires.
   But it will be soul-smashingly beautiful, Solo. It will open up your life.

- Sugar (Cheryl Strand), Tiny Beautiful Things

*Emphasis, mine

New space

Four months later

Moved into the corner space of our shared area. The "flags" on my desk are various paraphernalia- a Ms. Bertha postcard, my favorite photo of Papa, Bali coffee from the Last Row Traveler, a show catalogue from the National Visual Arts Gallery of Malaysia, a "Sherpa Award" from my previous work. Various books, a board, notebooks, gadgets, a thermos. Things to remind me of work, family, friends, art, &, somewhere tucked in between, love.  

The thing about occupying spaces, i.e. decorating them, putting up personal stuff, is that it makes you feel like you've come home. After 4 months, it looks like I finally "signed" the contract to what was previously just a temporary shop.

A Bird's Song, Ingrid Michaelson

One of Geninne's work-in-progress
(Check her out!)

You know we're not so far away get on a boat, get on a train and if you ever think you're drowning I'll try to slow the rain.  

In two years or so drop me a line, write me a letter I hope to find you're doing better better than today, better everyday.