the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

The header of my Multiply site -- http://neenerish.multiply.com . I started my Multiply site in 2004 out of a fascination for the concept of having a social networking site where I could actually have my own website--posting my own content for the entire world to read, and at the same time keeping family and friends updated without having to email all those bulky pictures and articles every time I had something new to share. At that time, only Friendster was big, I was writing freelance for a couple of publications, and the thought of having an online audience where I could write about the work I did both for travel writing and a community-based environmental NGO was like a whole new world of possibilities. Eventually, I decided to name my site after one of three columns that I had in Sun.Star Cebu, Lost and Found, which I started later that same year as a way to share my discoveries and rediscoveries on the endless journey of gathering fragments of my soul that I had forgotten i...

(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 ...

this morning i just took my first prelims exam, so i'm giving myself a short break/ reward before i start working again on my students' papers and studying for the next exam. i'm writing a blog entry to commemorate it because 1) i had only a vague idea of how exams for grad school and for Silliman and for this notoriously difficult professor went, and 2) this was the first time i actually studied for an exam since college (!). i was even afraid i'd forgotten how. i mean as far as i can remember, the only exams i've taken after college are the professional civil service exam and the TOEFL, and THOSE aren't things you study for =P actually, i think i HAVE forgotten how to study, as in college-style where you focus on all the little details that might come out in trick questions. fortunately, i have the sense now to read for the sake of understanding rather than for getting as many words into my head as possible that i can use in the exam. which means i didn't ...

  when i was younger, i used to make an inventory of all the gifts i got and from whom. now that i’m older (and we do get fewer gifts, don’t we, if at all =), i count how many people greet me, sort of as an indicator of whether my friends have also increased in number along with my age. my standard is that the number of greetings i get by phone and text should be at least equal to my age. last year, it was off the scale—too many friends ;-)   this year’s birthday index:   ADVANCED (day before) = about 2 or 3 texts ON TIME =   25 texts, 1 call (only! tsk tsk) **first greeting from my father (who says he doesn’t believe in birthdays anymore since shifting religions) at 00:05:47 **weirdest hour award goes to my former boss who sent a greeting at 03:51:55 BELATED (day after) = 2 texts, 4 calls   i guess that’s good enough, even though i didn’t quite hit the number on the day itself.   actually, i didn’t have the usual “rite of passage” feeling this year; didn...

thank God for the rain.   the other day, and then last night, we finally got SOME downpour, although it was intermittent and didn’t last very long each time.   it’s the end of my second week, and i’ve had a little more experience about what they day-to-day is like as a graduate student of Silliman. last Monday, for example, i paid my first visit to the university library.   researching at the library   i have to say that going into the silliman library makes me miss the ateneo and UP diliman libraries =( i typed in “ cora ls journal” into the online public access catalog (a.k.a. OPAC) and got FIVE results. i typed “fish journal” and got about twenty. and this is in a university by the sea that has pioneered coastal resource management in the philippines? people told me i had to go to the Marine Lab if i wanted to see publications on marine topics, but there the materials aren’t properly cataloged. still, wasn’t this supposed to be the MAIN library?   i went to l...

day 2 make myself feel better by fixing up my room-- something i can find comfort in and feel proud about. finally, starting from scratch with a place of my own. and of course, wonderful God that i have, just as i finish taking photos of my new sanctuary , i get a text from the department head telling me i have a slot for a teaching fellowship! nervous about teaching, and college zoology lab at that, but i don't say no to a challenge, especially if it's something i'm afraid of. and at last, i can enroll. grocery for breakfast food and buy a trash can for my room. have a dilemma--blue, basic one, or red and yellow one (to match my floor and laundry basket) that costs twice as much. at the last minute, beauty wins over budget. day 3 i finally get to attend the class i missed; talking to my classmates, with whom i have different things in common with. and the teacher who tells me to shift to environmental science is actaully funny, in a wry way, which is doubly funny for me. m...

so this is how it feels to live in a place where it feels like summer all the time--hot and humid. i never thought the heat could depress me this much, but here it is. it's definitely not hunger this time, even though my mind was swooning this morning when i went to the department to see if i could enroll already, because i hadn't eaten since i arrived from cebu early this morning. maybe it's depressing because i'm so near the sea and yet i have to walk around wearing normal clothes like a normal person sweating through the day.   after class this evening, i walked aimlessly by myself past the stores that were already closing, not really hungry for dinner, since i'd overcompensated for my morning hunger by eating two cheesebreads and a bottle of soymilk plus nova right before class. not even on my first night away from home, in college in manila, have i felt homesick. not like this. must be the heat. and the tiredness from all the traveling since thursday. my first ...

lost and found by Jeneen R. Garcia       Just as I do not know when I first learned to use words to name the world and make it my own, I do not remember a time when I did not have the sea.   Perhaps it was an ancient stirring in my cells that had me walking the shores of Samal Island in the summers--nine years old, magnifying glass in hand to peer at the curious creatures stranded by the tide.   Even going to college in hilly Quezon City , I swear I would sometimes smell brine in the air while walking under the acacia trees. Summer kept me in school, too, but it was during that long separation that I found the sea spilling over to--no, totally saturating--my poetry. I fed on words like perigean spring tide from enormous libraries that said so much about the sea, but had not a single drop of it on their shelves.   A few years later, after getting my diving license, I would lose all the words as I drifted in awe for the first time beneath a huge cloud of j...

(surprisingly, another blog entry, so soon. on a friday night) things that make new york still my favorite city so far in this country: 1. the subway get an unlimited pass and you can take the train or bus to ANYWHERE in this city. get on at times square and get off at a totally different world, like chinatown, or the bronx, or the east village. or flushing (may sariling mundo). i also love how everything's in blocks and avenues so it's always easy to find your way around. makes me not mind all the walking. all you need is to know how to read. 2. the libraries borrow books at one branch and return them at another. and not just books--graphic novels, audio books, cds, DVDs, magazines.... you can borrow FIFTY items at a time, for as long as THREE WEEKS. whew! and they have free internet, printing, job-search facilities, lectures every day on topics ranging from nutrition, photography, and resume-writing, and a nice collection of art, too. i could stay there all day, i could. (of ...

i'm at south street seaport right now, and it's about 4:30 pm, dawn on the other side of the world. i'm sitting in a lounge chair with a view of the brooklyn bridge, and the river, tug boats and water taxis sailing along as the sun sinks lower behind the buildings. it's an indian summer now, they call it, a sudden warm week in the middle of fall. the sun is following me even though i keep moving away. just got back from the salmon river in upstate new york. every year, the salmon fight the current in the river, going upstream to lay their eggs in the place they themselves were hatched. it was incredible seeing these big fish, and also quite sad. will be posting a video later to explain. stayed in a cabin at the shore of lake ontario (yup, across canada!). on the way home, dropped by albany, the state capital (something like boston and DC), an orchard in clinton for wine-tasting, a lake in the woods serendipitously discovered, and the vanderbilt mansion overlooking the h...

november 9, 2005 11:45 PM   though it lasted nine days, that last vacation seemed shorter than usual, as if i hadn’t done anything at all. and to think i managed to stick to my resolve to not go on the internet and check my mail or turn on my computer for work that whole time.   but i suppose there were some noteworthy things about it, like:   1)       finally got my own digital camera! it’s a hand-me-down from my younger brother (so does that make it a hand-me-up?) 2)       spent two days watching kids and japanese practice aikido in loyal support of my youngest brother. i took a video of the whole exhibition, and now he wants to sell it. 3)       because taxis were few and far between (and because i thought it would be much more fun), took a motorized trisikad across town at 11pm to meet up with my father and relatives on my first night home. 4)       sped through the rai...