the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

Start:      Dec 17, '08 7:00p Location:      CCP Ramp CCP features 62 writers in “Spirituality and Healing” book 10 December 2008, Pasay City – The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) announced today that 62 writers are included in the annual literary anthology Ani. Ani, which means harvest in the Filipino language, is a project of CCP’s Literary Arts Division. For its 34th issue, Ani focused on the theme “Spirituality and Healing”, the book launching will be held on December 17, 7:00 p.m. at the CCP ramp. The 62 writers who submitted prose and poetry featured in Ani 34 are Kris M. Alingod, Mark Angeles, Lilia F. Antonio, G. Mae B. Aquino, Carlos A. Arejola, Edgar Bacong, Isabela Banzon, Janet Tauro Batuigas, Gil S. Beltran, Herminio S. Beltran, Jr., Kristoffer Berse, Jaime Jesus Borlagdan, Nazzer C. Briguera, Catherine Candano, Desiree Caluza, Nonon Villaluz Carandang, Dexter B. Cayanes, Jose Jason L. Chancoco, Joey Stephanie Chua, Kristian Sendon C...

21 to 23 November 2008. After a horrendous week of coursework deadlines (gave a presentation on the 19th itself, stayed at the library till 5 a.m. that night to finish my chemistry paper due at noon the next day, woke up early on the 20th to proofread my paper, reprint and submit, then practice for another presentation at 1 pm), I finally got to properly celebrate the last year of my 20's on a tour of different villages along the English Jurassic coast (a UNESCO World Heritage site) in the county of Dorset. This year, though, I had the improbable (and ironic) surprise of actually having a classmate who's exactly my age. We found out we had the same birthday because we were groupmates for that presentation we had on our birthday :P So what's the probability of celebrating your birthday with someone exactly your age? Very small, I'm sure, and probably never again, so this was a rare gift. Because we both had all our November deadlines over last Thursday, we decided to do...

Start:      Nov 5, '08 6:30p Location:      Plymouth For Guy Fawkes Day--remember, remember the fifth of November....

01 November 2008. The magnificent church right beside the Roman baths--with live music from a choir that happened to be practicing when we were there :)

01 November 2008. It was a typical cold, gloomy day, but we were all set to see the lovely city of Bath with its 2,000-year old Roman baths. What I didn't expect was that Bath also had a Fashion Museum, which we got discounted tickets to with our tickets to the baths. I was with my Russian classmate Vera, and Polish friend Dorota, who readily transformed into models once we were inside. Though I wasn't too interested in the displays (it wasn't as comprehensive as I was expecting with such a grand name), at least I got some pretty good pictures of the two. Afterwards, we dropped by the Jane Austen Centre (but didn't go inside), because most of Jane Austen's novels mention Bath.

15 October 2008. Skipped a seminar to dive in 15-degrees water with my classmate Akilah, from Trinidad and Tobago. Everyone else was weraing dry suits, but we were wearing wetsuits and NO gloves. Couldn't feel my hands (or legs) when I climbed up the ladder. The very important thing we learned here is that unlike in tropical waters, you are not allowed to take off any of your gear (or your regulator from your mouth) while you are getting on the boat after the dive. With two tanks on my back and 9 kg of weights around my waist, it was only by the grace of God I made it back up :P

Start:      Oct 15, '08 1:00p End:      Oct 15, '08 5:00p Location:      Plymouth, UK first time to dive in the English Channel in English weather :D ...or in a freshwater quarry if the weather's really bad. either way, it will be a totally different experience from all the other dives i've had anywhere else, because i'll be wearing either a semi-dry or dry suit :P hope i don't shiver too much.

after i got some free pots and pans and plates from chaplaincy's second hand goods stall during international students week, and after i finally got a duvet cover (didn't even know they existed!), i was ready to settle in completely. it's actually quite bright during the day. i have a view of old houses and seagulls on their rooftops, but mostly the parking lot where they collect the garbage :P as you can see, it's not a villa at all :P but this will be home till the end of January. WARNING: spaces in pictures are smaller than they appear

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia to be published (or maybe not) on 27 September 2008 This year has brought me the unlikely gift of two summers: one in the Philippines, and another one in the US, where I spent the last two months. If I spend Christmas in Australia (or Chile, or South Africa), I would have three summers--that’s the maximum number of summers anyone can get in one year, unless perhaps you go to the poles. I was just starting to miss warm, languid days heading off to placid Lake Balanan in Siaton, the ice-cold waterfalls of Valencia, the surreal pillars of soft corals in Bacong on a night dive--and of course, twilight walks on Dumaguete’s boulevard--when I was soon face to face with a nurse shark for the first time in my life on another humid night in Florida. That was only the beginning. Soon after, wild alligators in the grassy Everglades, waters more placid and icy in Lake Minnewaska and Niagara Falls in upstate New York, a walk in Central Park in...

7 to 16 September 2008 - Plymouth, UK. The European adventure begins.... photos to complement the saga :)

(if you were wondering whatever happened to the second part of that update i promised to write, well, i accidentally deleted it when i reformatted my computer one frantic week in June before i left the Philippines, in the middle of doing my poster for Florida. in the meantime, life’s been rolling along without waiting for me to catch up, as always.   so i think it’s best if i go straight to what’s been happening lately, before i get overtaken by events again. my apologies to the people i was supposed to meet up with in florida , california and new york :( i was just too busy being with my family to schedule anything else. next time….)   tonight, i skipped the free pizza and traditional british games at the chaplaincy (when i dropped in earlier, it was actually boggle, twister and lottery bingo :P) and quiz night at the student union because finally, all the socializing has worn me down, and i just wanted to be alone and catch up with everyone i’ve left behind. that ...

Working with the warm, fuzzy feeling I got from having everyone on a conference call with Papa on his birthday--him in Davao, me in Queens, Jace in Manhattan, and Josrique in Maryland--I was excited about using simple technology to come up with another remote birthday gift idea, this time for Mama. She had been begging and nagging the three of us to book an hour at the studio during Jo's band practice for us to do our own recording (her longtime dream, she said), but there simply wasn't time, because of our difficult schedules (and actually, because none of us were very keen about being so "showbiz" :P). But her birthday was coming up, and who knew when the three of us would see each other again? So on my last day in New York, a few hours before my flight to London, we managed to all come together to do a secret recording at Jace's apartment (I let my mother assume we were having a last-minute psychotherapy session among ourselves, as this is what she ...

13 June 2008 Friday   Ask and ye shall receive.   Right after I realized that in the past two years since i quit my job I’ve been moving to a different city every five months or less, and just when I’d already told everyone in Dumaguete that finally, I would be staying put for at least a year, I got an email saying I would be going to Europe and moving to a different country every five months (or less) for 18 months starting in September.   Right now I am on the topmost deck of a ship on a 7-hour trip bound for Cagayan de Oro, where I will take a 7-hour bus ride with all my belongings from Dumaguete to Davao via Bukidnon. I promised myself that I would use this time exclusively for writing updates (for my own journals and for this one), because once I step on land, it’s back to being constantly on my toes. How is it even possible to be a bum for two years now and be constantly, impossibly busy?? You tell me what’s wrong with me after reading this.   It’...

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other This was published in September 2003 in Sun.Star Weekend as a Crossline. Happy Father's Day not just to the fathers out there but to all who know the joys (and frustrations) of having a father ;P NB At that time, I had really short hair. Look here to see what I mean. ======================= My father came over last month for a visit on his birthday. He said he wanted to see my new boarding house and office. Of course, the fact that The Boyfriend (whom he refuses to refer to as anything but ang iyong amígo ) had just moved to Cebu must have provided some amount of motivation. We’re not really the type to talk. I always thought he was too engrossed in his private world to be interested in anything I said, while he thought I was too opinionated. But when I live at home, he sometimes sits on my bed when I wake up and talks to me about The Rules. “Don’t you know it’s a New York Times bestseller?” he would say on so many mornings. He has this bad habit of f...

21 April 2008, Davao City. The night before Lola Coring's birthday, we took her to People's Park (the former PTA) and then had dinner at a barbecue place right across. Papa went into historian mode and started asking her about their life in Sorsogon when she and my lolo were growing up. There's still so little they know about their grandparents. I guess he wanted to do this a long time ago, but just didn't know how to initiate the project. Of course, I, too, instantly went into video documentarist mode.

16 April 2006, Davao City. In this clip Lola Coring realizes that her younger brother (my lolo) is actually in a worse physical state than she is, while Lolo Joe learns for the first time that his favorite younger sister, Josefina, has died--just last year, in September, and I never got to meet her :(

16 April 2008, Davao City. In a quick turn of events, the plan to bring Lola Coring to Davao for her 89th birthday came to fruition on April 16, less than a month after we first met, and only three days after the doctor gave her a clean bill of health for travel. Finally, the only two living siblings from Barcelona, Sorsogon met again after 20 years. Thanks to all who made this possible, especially for your prayers. Because time is of the essence.

Description: every war we've lost in philippine history has been because of a few filipino traitors who put their short-term interests first before the future of their countrymen. the JPEPA not just threatens to kill local industries further (as existing free trade agreements already unfairly do) but also gives sovereignty over our natural resources to the japanese. plus, there's also the risk of having toxic electronic waste getting dumped in our land and seas as part of the traded "goods". the agreement also has the power to repeal existing laws protecting our sovereignty if they disagree with new arrangements under this agreement. let us not allow traitors to sell our country again to foreign powers. read up and sign! PS and please do forward this. ==================== Greetings! We, groups and individuals in Cebu campaigning for the rejection of the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA), are starting an on-line petition addressed to the Philipp...

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia to be published (or maybe not) on 26 April 2008     I don’t have a mole on either foot to prove it, but I’ve been called gypsy, nomad, and other tribes of similar occupation too often to deny it. Instead of a caravan, I have my backpack with essential clothing, toiletries, and electronic gadgets to keep me covered wherever night may catch me. If I’m moving house, I tow along my suitcase of books and diving gear as well.   I’m in the middle of yet another move to another city. In the last two years, I’ve lived no longer than five consecutive months in any single place--something I didn’t realize until THIS transit. I’ve shipped my stuff from one city to another so many times that packing up has become second nature; my suitcase is always on standby for quick departures.   Relocating? It’s easy: post an ad in Friendster and other social networking sites saying you’re looking for a place to live in whatever city you’re headed ...

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other STRANGER THAN FICTION by Jeneen R. Garcia published in 2002 And here's the story about my former housemates on Acacia St. that I promised to post. Told you I have a lot of strange-funny stories in my life :P I try to forget most of them so I don't feel I'm so weird. ==================== I love old houses. They remind me of the home I grew up in, complete with leaky ceilings and cockroaches in the most sacred places. So maybe it’s no surprise I tend to attract ghosts. At first I thought it was just a doppelganger, my “other” self. Two of my college roommates saw “her” in the room on separate occasions, once wearing all white, another time wearing all black. I am sure neither one was me, because I was either out of the room at that time or fast asleep in my bed. This year, when I moved to a new boarding house, I couldn’t help going back to an old house that I had already looked at two years before but couldn’t afford then. The room felt like my r...

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other STRANGER THAN FICTION by Jeneen R. Garcia published in April 2002 I wrote this for Earth Day, April 22, which also happens to be my Lola Coring's birthday. She's turning 89 in a few days, and she's celebrating it in Davao for the first time (more on that in a forthcoming--i hope, if/when i have enough time--blog entry or photo album). I just found it cool that now I have two groovy lolas associated with Earth Day :D ================ The things you inherit from grandmothers. My lola 's name was Generosa. She was thrifty, frugal, cheap to the point of stinginess. She kept everything—letters, designer shoes and bags, and cash from every decade—in an aparador she had rescued all the way from Cavite where she lived before WWII hit. She insisted on saving things for a rainy day till she forgot all about them. If not for me and my brothers poking around in her drawers, precious antiques would have stayed buried under piles of unremarkable memor...

Rating: ★★★★ Category: Other STRANGER THAN FICTION BY Jeneen R. Garcia published in November 2001 This is the first installment of my first-ever column, published in FLIP, Sun.Star's youth section. In college, my friends would compile the strange-funny stories of my life to entertain themselves (it's such a high, laughing about the misfortunes and misadventures of other people :P), so I decided to write about them myself to entertain more people. ==================== You need only read the papers to get what I’m saying. Sept. 11 Survivor Dies in Plane Crash was on yesterday’s front page. This woman who worked in the WTC missed being crushed under the rubble, but fate made sure she was on the plane that crashed into a Queens neighborhood. Just as strange is the guy who didn’t make it to that plane because his little sister got lost coming back from the bathroom at the airport. Even the local news can be full of surprises. I remember the news on a woman and a true-blue parlor qu...

22 March 2008. Black Saturday, I went on an expedition with my second cousin Bisig and Tito Joseph to visit Lola Coring, my lolo's 88-year old eldest sister, whom I had never met. We brought our full gear for documenting the visit, her stories about surviving World War II as well as present-day Cubao, where she continues to sell candies on the sidewalk. In this clip, she tells us about a dog that was given to them from Australia while they were hiding out in Romblon in the 1940s with the family of a guerilla captain. It was risky to keep a dog, because it could bark and lead the Japanese to their hideout. But this one, she says, was smart and would hide every time there were Japanese passing by. This is the rest of the story....

Rating: ★★★★★ Category: Other the sequel to my first Weekend piece (published in Weekend around April 2001 as a more distinguished Essay, rather than a generic Crossline), you can see how Cebu changed my life after only six months ;) ====================== I should have known moving to Cebu would be anything but normal. Twenty minutes into my six-month stay here, I found myself standing by a grassy embankment a few hundred meters from the Mactan airport, dumped by an irate taxi driver when I refused to pay the P150-fixed charge to my boarding house in Gorordo. I tried to keep my righteously disdainful look on, but it was hard with rain dripping from my hair. It seemed the city hated me at first sight. Cebu, I soon found out, had a secret language all its own—I was doomed to getting dumped on some nameless road unless I learned it. No way was I standing on that embankment ever again. I resolved that my first lesson in the language was to find my way around. I’ve never seen a map of the ...