Tomorrow will be a better day

This weekend, my class and I went on a field trip to Pagudpod, Ilocos Norte where they surveyed a river in the rain. We traveled all of Friday night, and hiked to the site right after breakfast on Saturday. Everyone was tired, but we managed to get some work done. On the Sunday trip home, the students asked the conductor to put on a horror movie. We spent most of the ride up Naguilian Road hungry, tired, and scared entertained.

Today, I tried to sleep off a cough that has been squatting in my throat. It has been making the task of easing into my regular orbit nearly impossible.

On The Exchange, Hanna writes a luminous review for An Abundance of Katherines by John Green:

"It is a charming novel that is genuinely funny and incredibly intelligent. The characters are real, flawed, endearing, and wonderfully three-dimensional. Colin Singleton, the protagonist, does get a bit whiny and annoying. But then there’s Hassan, Colin’s best friend, who always manages to save the day either by cracking a joke or faking an asthma attack." 

I get to borrow it from her soon, and I'm very excited.

The fatigue of the trip and my cold have been threatening to pull me into my hole. But the promise of good books, a couple of Frasier episodes, and kind words kept me steady today.

Paracetamol and blankets await. Later.

September in the chair

Happy Baguio Day!

To celebrate, I give you one of my favorite pieces of trivia about the city:

Bobby Fischer, perhaps the greatest chess player of all time, lived in Baguio from 2000 to 2002. The man was a legend. Possessed with genius far beyond his time, he became the youngest grandmaster at the tender age of 15. In 1972, he beat the Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky and became World Champion. He was to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov in 1975, but refused to play when his proposed conditions for the match were not approved. He retreated from the public eye soon after. He became a recluse and did not play competitively for almost 20 years. In 1992, he re-surfaced for a re-match with Boris Spassky, which he won. In a 2004 Bombo Radyo interview, he referred to Spassky as his " very good frenemy."

He lived a quiet life in Baguio, spending time with his then-partner Marilyn Young and the Filipino grandmaster Eugene Torre. I read in an article that he enjoyed balut and sinigang, and played tennis at Country Club. He appreciated the simple things, content to take relaxing walks in the cool climate and be surrounded by people he loved and trusted. He, like many of us who love Baguio, knew what this city is about.

Books and doing nothing on a Monday

A free Monday at last. I woke up wantonly late this morning, and intend to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the day.

The third book of The Hunger Games trilogy, Mockingjay, is finally out. I finished reading it yesterday morning, and spent most of Sunday recovering. I wrote a review for it on The Exchange, a writing/reading project Hanna and I have just recently begun. It is a work in progress, but it would be great if you could drop by and give us a little love.

I got myself a couple of great books last night. The Yangco girls just opened Mt. Cloud Bookshop in Casa Vallejo and it is looking brilliant. There were a bunch of great titles, and I bought Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui for only P50. After dinner, Lem and I dropped by SM Booksale where I found Fool by Christopher Moore. I'd been looking around for a while, and was just about to tell Lem how frustrating it was not to find anything when there were so many new books. Then I looked up and spotted Fool on one of the higher shelves. I couldn't reach so I asked the man next to me to please hand it down to me. He kindly obliged, and I had to keep myself from scaring him with peals of excitement. I've only ever bought Christopher Moore's books full price, so I was ecstatic finding one for only P165.

Pa and Jake will be home soon with the groceries, and I should get started with lunch. Later.

The Beautiful Miscellaneous

Hanna writes a review of Dominic Smith's The Beautiful Miscellaneous:

"For the record, let me just say that I get uncharacteristically attached with the characters in the book that I read and I have a hard time dealing when the time comes for me to let go of them.

This sentiment is especially true after reading The Beautiful Miscellaneous by Dominic Smith. The book is essentially about a seemingly ordinary boy who has been living under the shadow of his father’s genius..."

Continue reading the review on The Exchange.

Kubi reads

The children's section at Shakespeare Asynove, an English bookstore in Prague.

In the 1995 Sabrina with Julia Ormond, Sabrina tells her father the best reason she loves him is that he took a job as a chauffeur so he could have more time to read. I think I might look nice in a chauffeur's hat.

Here is a list of books I have read this year, so far:

1. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
2. There once lived a woman who tried to kill her neighbor’s baby by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
3. A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
4. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley
5. Atonement by Ian McEwan
6. The Complete Short Fiction of Oscar Wilde
7. Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
8. Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
9. Persuasion by Jane Austen
10. Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O’Malley
11. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
12. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
13. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan
14. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Titan by Rick Riordan
15. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
16. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
17. Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore
18. A Cook’s Tour by Anthony Bourdain
19. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
20. Aftershock by Kelly Easton
21. Life History of a Star by Kelly Easton
22. South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
23. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
24. Shopgirl by Steve Martin
25. French Milk by Lucy Knisley
26. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
27. Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour by Brian Lee O’Malley
28. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
29. Exchange by Paul Magrs
30. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
31. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
32. The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg
33. Eloise in Moscow by Kay Thompson
34. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
35. Fluke by Christopher Moore
36. Paper Towns by John Green
37. Looking for Alaska by John Green
38. Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen
39. Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
40. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
41. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
42. Watership Down by Richard Adams
43. My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kluger
44. The Giver by Lois Lowry
45. It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
46. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
47. Fool by Christopher Moore
48. Fly on the Wall by E. Lockhart
49. Breakfast at Tiffany's (and Three Stories) by Truman Capote
50. Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon

This is after

I cannot imagine what the people on the bus were feeling. I wonder if they were wishing to see loved ones who were far away.

The events of August 23 are so nebulous, I have not fully grasped them. I do know some of our own fucked up in a most spectacular fashion. Rolando Mendoza took fifteen people hostage, got most of them killed and later lost his own life. The PNP was unprepared; the media was intrusive; and the president almost missed the party. The Chinese in Hong Kong are lashing out. Pain does that to people.

The Filipinos are experiencing varying levels of embarrassment. The bungling idiocy of the PNP and the insensitivity of the local media can make anyone cringe. But it is necessary to separate feelings about a series of unfortunate events from feelings about who we are as a people. If we are to redeem ourselves, we must remember that we are worthy to do so. It is not: "I am not embarrassed to be Filipino." It is: "I am proud to be Filipino."

Let's turn off the TV...

...it's killing us, we never speak.

The photo source here.

The Midnight Organ Fight by Frightened Rabbit is one of my favorite albums ever. I get the feeling that these guys are kind of self-deprecating. And well, I'm a little self-deprecating myself. It's how I roll.

Anyway, songs on the album have been the backdrop to my two-day grading marathon. At school, everyone is just finishing up with their second long exams. I have arrived at my last batch of unchecked blue books. An end is nigh.

It's only 7PM and it feels like I've been awake for two days. Later.