The Journey to an Ateneo-La Salle UAAP Game

I write this in the ungodly morning hours of Sunday with my mind still on Saturday; ergo, I shall refer to Saturday night as 'tonight' and Sunday night as 'tomorrow night'.

Tonight, the 2012 Palanca Awards were given out at The Peninsula Manila. By mentioning that, I am of course confirming that I did enter and lost. Perfectly excusable, since 1) it's my first time to join the adult categories, and 2) it's never not excusable to lose in the Palancas. 

It's like Viola Davis in The Help losing out to Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady - (riot alert! riot alert!) - I mean, Jessica Chastain in Take Shelter losing the nomination to Jessica Chastain in The Help - (RIOT ALERT! RIOT ALERT!) - I mean, Avatar losing to The Hurt Locker for Best Picture - (calm). 

Well, what I meant to say was, winning a Palanca is always the exception, so here's a warm and sincere congratulations to the winners, especially to that of Short Story in English. And for the curious, here's my Palanca win back in 2009, 2nd prize in Kabataan Essay in English.

Ergo, my day turned out quite fantastic. Eli - friend since 4 years old, classmate since nursery, best friend by whatever definition - is here in Manila. Again. (I say that because he doesn't even study here, yet he's here more often than either of my parents are.) Last night - Friday night - he was at the Araneta Coliseum for the Mixed Martial Arts thing (like the one in Warrior starring Tom Hardy, who's now colloquially known as Bane). The entire ordeal involved seven hours of standing, so he said.

Since he wanted to have lunch at some traditional Chinese restaurant that served 'good' oyster cake, I took him to Sincerity Restaurant along Yuchengco Street. I've been there only once, so I wasn't quite sure if it's really that good by expert culinary standards. Turned out to be not quite as good as its reputation paints it to be, but I actually don't care since I don't like venturing into the heartlands of Binondo in the first place. One, because it's always rowdy and overstuffed with people; two, because the horses and their carriages make the entire place reek faintly of horse manure. 

Eli pointed out that it's more or less the same case with every Chinatown, from Singapore to New York. I pointed out that this Chinatown is in the Philippines, where I live; therefore, its innate rowdiness and faint smell of horse manure are legal reasons for me to not enjoy walking down its narrow roads. 

After lunch, we walked from the restaurant all the way to the Carriedo station of LRT Line 1 (in Avenida, Sta. Cruz) and took the train to Vito Cruz station, or De La Salle University. The plan was to eat at Zark's Burgers, but he quickly realized the lunch had transiently left us with not enough space in our stomachs to contain the famed humongous burgers.

So we settled for hanging at Starbucks beside College of St. Benilde and summoning our dearest Iloilo classmate and friend Paopao to come to our side. She had class, then ran off to CCP for the matinee of The Phantom of the Opera. I like that word by the way - 'hanging', denoting the act of hanging out. Like how Americans or conio Filipinos say it: "Let's hang this Saturday," or "I, like, hanged with the barkada at Banapple along Katipunan."

Then, Zhou - Eli's South Korean friend who's currently having his OJT with Jeju Air - answered the summon. So it was, the three of us hanging at Starbucks like a trio of over-entitled elitist brats or med students who find it necessary to study in coffee shops. On a side note, Zhou earns way more in his OJT than most doctors in residency training in this country do.

Then, Eli decided it was time for Zark's. By the way, he'd been saying a lot about not having tickets to the afternoon's Ateneo-La Salle UAAP men's basketball game. So guess what, there and then, one of his contacts texted him saying she still had unsold tickets. He successfully bought them for P200 each. Thus, we found ourselves in a taxi, got off at Legarda station, took the LRT 2 all the way to Gateway Mall, ate a bit at Taco Bell, then got our tickets from a high school batchmate from another school in Iloilo. All that meant four 'firsts' for me: Starbucks in the La Salle area, taking the LRT at Legarda station, eating Taco Bell, and seeing a major UAAP game live.

After 3.25 years of staying in Manila, I finally got to watch a UAAP men's basketball game, and undoubtedly in its most exciting form. We were at the Ateneo side since our seller's an Atenean, but that's just about the amount of loyalty we have for Ateneo. In any case, it was loads of fun cheering the Ateneo cheers like a bunch of presumptious fake Ateneans that we were. 

Which made me realize how out-of-place a UP student/ alumni/ person would feel if he or she went to these games. The last (and first) time I watched a UAAP game, it was women's basketball - UP vs. Ateneo, and we won. But it was only because our PE class required us to watch at least one UAAP game (not in reference to why or how we won.)

We ended the night back at Zark's where Eli tried but failed to conquer the Jawbreaker challenge: 300g of fries, a glass of iced tea, and a half-pound burger - all for free if consumed within five minutes. I feel sick just thinking about it. Sadly, he lost, said he still has much practice to do. He shall return, Zark's.

1st year Intarmed students in the aftermath of a UP-Ateneo UAAP women's basketball game, September 2009.

My first photo using PicFrame.

 The monster. Zark's Burgers across De la Salle University, Manila.

My First Ever Two-Show Day

Leon, Iloilo, November 2007.

Let's not talk about the present. Congratulations to the UP College of Medicine Class of 2012 for being the top performing school in this year's August Physician Licensure Exam (on that note, congrats to Dr. Carol Tan - pride and loyal spawn of Intarmed). 

Let's not talk about un-awesomeness as well. This morning's 2nd (and last) exam on pulmonary medicine was quite, shall we say, unoriginal. Like, incredibly, unbelievably unoriginal. Now I'm no longer certain if anyone of us actually knows, and really knows, enough of Pulmo to be worthy of the next year level.

Instead, let's talk about the awesomeness of last Saturday. 

Because in theater parlance, it was my first ever two-show day. And it wasn't even a planned two-show day, and by 'planned', I mean conceived and laid out the day before.

Friday, I bought a ticket to the Saturday night performance of Upstart Productions' rerun of Forbidden Broadway. That was after I had my haircut at Bench Fix (don't care how it's stylized), Robinson's Manila. A word of advice: Don't go there. The employees are as rude as can be, and the stylists are as uninterested as a bunch of whales watching badminton.

So there I was, set for my grand Saturday-night return to RCBC Plaza. Then I thought, "This will also be the first weekend for PETA's Bona." And the initial critical reactions were quite good. 

Therefore, at around 1:30PM Saturday, I found myself inside a taxi headed for the PETA Theater. I'd thought of taking a jeepney, but then decided against it as it would entail two rides, the second of which would be the horrendous stretch from Manila City Hall to St. Luke's Medical Center.

I Know Him So Well filled the taxi. It was a terrible version, like plastic surgery gone wrong. Two divas screaming their souls out.

Good thinking with the taxi - I arrived at the theater an hour later. But as it's only the opening weekend of a show whose publicity's nowhere near that of The Phantom of the Opera (now at the CCP), quite a lot of tickets were still available. I got a balcony seat for P600.

When I entered the balcony section, I thought this theater must have the best sight lines in the Metro. With an estimated capacity of 400, there mustn't be a bad seat in the house. I settled for the center section's highest row, which was empty at the time.

But heaven must have missed me. Students and teachers of St. Peter's College Seminary (not sure if it's the one from San Pablo, Laguna) were on a field trip. First, they tried out balcony left. Then, some of them saw where I was and so decided to fill the endless void around me. The only awkward thing about it was that I was already seated in the middle of my row, so I ended up being literally surrounded by the group. If you guys ever read this, maybe you can send me links to some of the photos we had.

But seriously though, I'm all praise for this institute (it is an institute, yes?). I may not have age on my side, but perhaps I have passion for the theater enough to be allowed to commend the administrators of St. Peter's for exposing the kids to this side of the arts. Heck, it's beyond brilliant they're taking the time to expose the kids to the arts at all, and not just classroom talk. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing, what they're doing. By the way, the reason they chose such a heavy piece? Walang Sugat at the CCP was sold out.

 

Also, residents of the Department of Pathology were apparently benign enough that afternoon to be at the theater as well. Fancy seeing you there.

I left the theater at around 5:30PM (no, I still wasn't ready to meet Eugene Domingo in person). Decided that a taxi would be the fastest with 2.5 hours left before my next show, so I got one there and then on the rolling terrain of E. Rodriguez Avenue. 

"Traffic's everywhere," the driver told me. But then that's what all drivers are bound to tell you during peak transit hours. And indeed, traffic was hell along the entire stretch of Gilmore Avenue. At that time, it was apparent I was in for a long ride. 

So I decided to cut it short. I got off at Gilmore Avenue-Aurora Boulevard and took the LRT 2. Gilmore station has to be best station I've been on yet. And because of this, I finally stepped foot inside Gateway Mall after more than three years of living in Manila. Took the MRT from EDSA to Buendia Avenue. A guy had a badminton racket sticking out of his bag, which made me realize I haven't played since last year. Anyway, I had a quick dinner some place at the corner of EDSA and Buendia, and then had my first jeepney ride along the latter.   

And that, in a (humongous) nutshell, was how I transported myself between the two theaters.

Now, on Forbidden Broadway.

Best act of the night had to be Liesl Batucan as drug-addicted Liza Minelli.

The Sondheim segment! ("Into the Words").

Lorenz Martinez as Mandy Patinkin!

Fiddler on the Roof! ("Ambition").

War of the Anitas!

And for a nightcap, here's one from a favorite Sondheim song: "But if life were made of moments, then you'd never know you had one."

The cast of Forbidden Broadway in the Les Miserables segment (L-R): Lorenz Martinez, Caisa Borromeo, Liesl Batucan, and OJ Mariano. Photo from elysplanet.com

PETA's Bona: A Study on Devotion

Some twelve kilometers northeast of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, where Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera will be haunting audiences with a falling chandelier for the next seven weeks, a scaled-down yet more corporeal horror is taking place.

That horror involves only a man stripped to his underwear, the woman whom he treats as his maid, and a boiling kettle of water. "Sige, paliguan mo na ako," the man says to her. Bathe me. And so she does, dousing his bare skin with the water in two splashes. The effect is instantly chilling: He falls to the ground writhing in a most visible form of excruciation, she bathes him with pent-up anger and all the cuss words her lips can muster. "Hayop ka!" Animal!

Whether the man ends up as disfigured as Lord Webber's masked phantom is left to the imagination. But the woman, it must be stressed, is neither musical genius nor malevolent phantasm.

She is Bona, the titular character in Philippine Educational Theater Association's (PETA) 45th Season opener, a modernized take on the Lino Brocka film that brought the venerable actress Nora Aunor, then in her late twenties, all the way to the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. But whereas Brocka's Bona is a student hailing from a middle-class family, in this stage adaptation by Layeta Bucoy (with additional scenes by Phil Noble), she has transformed into a single, middle-aged call-center agent. The slums have given way to an ordinary household and a condo unit with an elaborately tiled bathtub equipped with a functioning faucet. 

 

Eugene Domingo as "Bona." 

That said, perhaps the best way to approach PETA's "Bona" (directed by Soxie Topacio) is to have no background whatsoever on the film. At the very least, forget everything one has heard or seen of Aunor's incomparable acting prowess or Brocka's indelible directorial imprint on the local film industry. Call centers weren't so popular in the Philippines back then, to begin with.

The play opens with Bona, devotee of Quiapo's Black Nazarene, praying to a miniature version of the image on a homemade altar whose drawer doubles as a piggy bank. This is a woman who prays with the untainted sincerity of a child. But she also runs an online fortune-telling business, which is ironic, and teaches English to Koreans via her computer. She is the breadwinner - her nephew Bingo depends on her, but also the child's mother (her sister) Binky, who flits from one boyfriend to another. Her best friend Baldy runs to her in times of financial shortage, but at least his neediness is outweighed by more genuine traits such as honesty (as every best friend is wont to possess). Such is Bona's colorful life.

Along comes Gino, contestant of TV talent search "Star of Tomorrow." He promised his dying mother he would become an artista. Bona, introduced to the show by Baldy and his boyfriend Raf, becomes inexplicably drawn to him. She spearheads his fan club "Gino's Angels," and when he gets eliminated from the show and beaten up in a bar, brings him home out of pity. Just a helpful adoring fan playing hero of a lifetime. The natural thing to do, if there's such a thing, is to have Gino wake up in the morning sober and less bruised, get an autograph and perhaps a photo, then say farewell, 'til we meet again.

But what transpires is a story that so absurdly portrays human downfall and destruction, it's quite tempting to label it 'Shakespearean'. In retrospect, "Bona" feels like two polar halves joined together by one woman's tragic fall in life. Act I ends with Bona, internally swelling with love for the man, finishing off Gino's drunken, dissonant take on "The Greatest Love of All"; Act II ends with the boiling water scene. The first act, chock-full of laughs and romances; the second, a darker, grittier depiction of what comes after.

Joey Paras as "Baldy" (left) and Domingo.

Bona is played by Eugene Domingo - and potential viewers, be warned: This is hardly usual Eugene fare. Last year, in "Ang Babae sa Septic Tank," the Cinemalaya film that won her the festival's Best Actress award, Domingo also took a turn for the unexpected, playing a hard-to-reach diva version of herself. This is also not the work that's most likely to propel her to immortality - that would be "Kimmy Dora."

But fear not, Domingo delivers by all means. Again, the temptation is there - to use 'tour de force' in this sentence - but hers really is a carefully constructed performance, that no trace of celebrity remains once she commands the stage. Here, she becomes the character - not a Go Donghae twin, but pure and palpable Bona. She's hilarious (her comedic skills should be unquestionable), but with every laugh comes the strain of a bored, fragile middle-class life. In the pivotal Act II climax, even as she boils the water with her back turned to the audience, we feel a kind of repressed evil slowly clouding the air. It's a rare skill in the theater nowadays - the ability to build up terror through silence without falling flat midway and settling for the expected.

Domingo, however, is only one half of the pair that sustains the play's trajectory. Enter Edgar Allan Guzman, who won last year's Cinemalaya Best Actor trophy for "Ligo Na U, Lapit Na Me." Here and now, he should be awarded 'best fit for a role'. How he effortlessly conveys celebrity search contestant and user/know-nothing/desperate second-rate actor without contorting his face and throwing his arms to the air to make himself 'big' must be a heaven-sent skill.  

In truth, without Guzman, Domingo wouldn't be as successful in her role. Guzman feeds Domingo with the kind of awkwardness needed to highlight the age gap, the kind of frustration to trigger her climactic act of fury, the kind of helplessness that her Bona chooses to turn a blind eye to whenever his Gino rats on about Gino and Gino alone. Mutualism, it's called in science, a give-and-take relationship which is also evidently at work between Domingo and the rest of the supporting cast. 

Joey Paras as Baldy is especially winning (his joy over discovering that there exists a sleeveless version of the Gino's Angels shirt is priceless). Applause must more so be accorded to Juliene Mendoza, who, as the condo landlord infatuated with Bona, delivers all the cheesy pick-up lines with a most natural flair, he makes cheese seem the best weapon to wooing a woman. Gabs Santos is a very believable straight-acting gay, BJ Forbes surprises with a nuanced, toned-down turn as Bingo, and Olive Nieto voraciously attacks Binky as if the role were Blanche DuBois (it's not). "Tingnan mo nga ang sarili mo ate, may pinagkaiba pa ba tayo?" she tearfully spits at an equally tearful Bona, bereft of everything late in the second act.

 Domingo and Edgar Allan Guzman as "Gino" (right).

At the end of this two-and-a-half-hour play, one leaves the theater with a heavy, prodding feeling, as if the hilarity of the first act had entirely dissipated. That's because "Bona" fearlessly asks more questions from its audience than it allows its audience to do unto it.

Consider, for example, how the mother figure is here dissected three-ways. First, in the form of Gino's mother, whose death (involving the ensaymada that would later become staple Gino's Angels giveaway) leaves him hungry for fame and celebrity. Second, as a martyr - Bona serving Gino his breakfast, preparing his baths, scavenging for money while her 'son' gambles and sleeps with a childhood sweetheart (Anna Luna, strikingly naive). And just before the lights dim at the end of the play, a twisted take on Michelangelo's Pieta - Gino, burnt and unconscious on the floor; Bona, standing over him. "P*tang ina mo!" she screams at his body.

Now what does that make of the caring and loving mother? She does have cougarly sex with him (to fireworks and blooming roses projected on the overhead screen - excellent technical decision, by the way, if not somewhat stereotypical).

Which begs an even bigger question: Is Bona ever truly in love with Gino? What, for instance, is the mysterious force that leads the woman to surrender P15,000 just so a press conference can be staged for him, care of his talent managerial team (a trio portrayed with much welcome, if sometimes uneven camp by Jef-Henson Dee, Dudz Terana, and Juvenir Tabor, who manages to turn a stumble with his lines into cause for laughter)?

It starts off as pity, that much is clear, but just how far can pity go before it unknowingly transcends boundaries and turns to obsession? For sure, it's no longer pity that drives Bona to mortgage the family home just so she can finance Gino's launching film (or "lunching" as the boy would have it, to comedic effect). And even that is not spared an inquisition: Why on earth would she, the breadwinner and lone stronghold of sanity in her family, do that? Pretend it's not a plot hole, a directorial or actorly misstep, and it proves a fairly difficult thought to wrap one's head around.

In "Devotion," the 2004 Palanca Award winner for Essay in English by Wilfredo Pascual, Jr., the author tackles one man's fascination with Nora Aunor and the times he met her in person. Backstage, after a concert, he recalls, Aunor was surrounded by adoring fans, as if she had become the image of a saint enshrined in a grotto by her cult. In "Bona," Domingo plays an Aunor role, but this time, she is the devotee. It must be safe to assume that at any point in Act II preceding its climax, the temptation for Bona to replace the Black Nazarene with a framed photograph of Gino must have been laborious to resist. 

So perhaps devotion is the answer to everything. That in this age where celebrities sometimes find themselves elevated to the level of saints, the lines between fandom and obsession, and obsession and devotion, can just so easily be blurred. Here in the world of PETA's "Bona," even the sanest, most rational person can fall victim to this kind of societal blindness and inflict upon oneself not just corporeal damage, but tears and wounds of the soul.    

The final scene plays out Bona's "interview" with celebrity host Boy Abunda. How surreal it must be for the woman to finally be the star herself. Boy asks her the difference between alipin, servant, and fan. "A servant is paid with money; a fan is paid with a photo, an autograph, a smile," she says. Only, she certainly gets paid more than just that.

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Bona runs at the PETA Theater, off E. Rodriguez Avenue, Quezon City until September 23. Visit PETA's website and ticketworld.com.ph for show dates and tickets. This review is based on the matinee performance of August 25. All photos in this post were taken by Jory Rivera for BroadwayWorld.com - Philippines. 

Liaisons and Wannabe

The view from where I spent Saturday night, courtesy of pharmaceutical company Pfizer. "It's like being in the villa of Madame Armfeldt," my brother would say. Not exactly great imagery - Angela Lansbury and her huge eyes would pop up before my mind's eye in an instant. 

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The Southwest Monsoon had one hellish bout of dysmenorrhea two weeks ago. Three days of classes got cancelled. What's left of the last of three weeks of Cardio: the practical exams on Monday, then the 200-item gigantic exam on Friday. That was three entire days of lectures turned into self-study sessions. That, and struggling against the feeling of "There are homeless people out there, but you can't do anything about it because you have to study for this exam." Ah well, as the fellow-in-charge told us (through text message), "be mature, man up, and study." And if the entire section of cardiology had been offering eggs to Sta. Clara for the longest time, then by Jove, it worked.

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I'm probably one of the very few who never went all giddy over the Olympics. I woke up one fine morning and didn't even know the Games had opened. It's only my aunt who kept score of China's medal tally, comparing it to the US every few days. I don't know if she cried in her sleep when Mother China finally fell to second place for good. 

The only part of this year's Olympics that I saw and felt passionate about was the closing ceremony performance of the Spice Girls. I was in kindergarten the year they first conquered the charts. As a kid, I knew the lyrics to Stop, 2 Become 1, Wannabe, Too Much, and Say You'll Be There by heart. That moment in the video when the announcer says, "It's the arrival of the Spice Girls!" actually gave me goosebumps, the years of wild abandon(?) finally coming back to me. (Now this sounds like a Jim Steinman song.)

P.S. Stop = best Spice Girls song of all time. Rant away now. Also, that up there's not the best video in YouTube, but blogger's acting up. 

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Why did it take me such a long time to see Memento, Requiem for a Dream, Mysterious Skin, and The Squid and the Whale?!

An Enemy of PETA

I ate crocodile claw for dinner. Now I feel like a sinner. For all I know, I'd willingly hand myself over to PETA and be burned at the stake. If you've read this blog for quite some time, you'd know crocodiles are one of my most favorite animals in the world (along with rhinos and hippos and snakes and the capybara and the octopus). Shit, all this talk is making me feel sick. Maybe it's the crocodile, or whatever's left of the claw, talking.

But what the hell. It was my aunt's birthday dinner. You can't exactly blame her: She's not so young anymore (Patti LuPone's only a couple of years older than her), and she's as Chinese as Chinese can be. Yes, that includes siding with the motherland when it comes to Scarborough and Panatag debates, and rooting for the Chinese Olympians to conquer London by the end of the month. So crocodile claw is probably no more than just exotic fare for her, one that should be had during monumental celebrations. I'm not the least bit surprised. Last year, we had ostrich. And the year before, turtle soup, complete with carapace.

I wonder if next year, we can have some leopard stew or roasted leg of gnu.

We only have a week left for the cardiology module. The ginormous 200-item exam's next Friday. At this morning's preceptorials at the PGH Pediatrics ER, I saw my first TOF baby. The weather has been wild the past week. Based on satellite images, next week should bring an even wilder storm. Memries/ Like the corners of my mind/ Misty water-colored memries...

Since we are being oh-so-Chinese, look what I found in the suki DVD store last June.

Batman, Carnage, and Some Other Culture-y Stuff

... It's hard to measure how epic The Dark Knight Rises really is. The opening sequence set some thousands of feet in the air is deliciously fast-paced and suavely crafted, yet has the IQ of a delinquent. That, however, is saved by the stock market and football stadium/ blowing up the tunnels scenes. 

... Gotham as New York City in a parallel universe is spot-on, especially with the Occupy Wall Street references. Social commentary reminiscent to and possibly as audacious as Hugo's Les Miserables courses through TDKR's veins. Is the film showing us what can very possibly happen if one just 'gives the city back to the people'? 

... Anne Hathaway's Catwoman is... gorgeous. Christian Bale is simply normal, yet again. This Batman film has an extremely bland and unintelligible villain. Tom Hardy is barely of use here. Seriously, the climactic one-on-one is a fist fight between Bane and Batman? I think Christopher Nolan watched a bit too much sensationalized boxing somewhere in the process of making the film. 

... The nuclear bomb ending is oh so unoriginal - we've seen that before, in Angels and Demons. But the Marion Cotillard villain twist and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Robin are beautifully played out. So, can Nolan ever top his Inception? Where does TDKR place against its predecessor? Is there any villain out there that can actually be better than Ledger's Joker?

The set of Atlantis Productions' God of Carnage, July 13-22 at the RCBC Theater, Makati City. The woman kneeling is Lea Salonga in the role of Veronica. Photo from Broadwayworld.com - Philippines.

... "(Atlantis Productions') God of Carnage is smashing, devilish fun." -Gibbs Cadiz, The Philippine Daily Inquirer. Anyone out there who disagrees is a phony. I don't know what else to say, except that this is the best quartet in theater I've ever seen. To the people who missed this one, poor you.            

... There were children in this afternoon's performance. Parents, please be more responsible. Maybe some of you thought this was a musical starring Lea Salonga as another doomed heroine? I feel for the kids; they must have felt so violated and confused. Imagine having your generation generalized as savages.

... Dear Menchu Lauchengo-Yulo, you are the best thing in this play. The vomit scene was just priceless. And it's so nice to see Salonga not sing for once, and nail the part. And I believe we have to see more of Art Acuna on the Manila stage. And Adrian Pang should definitely work more often in the Philippines. Maybe they can do Follies sometime with Menchu and Lea and Adrian and Audie Gemora... just a thought. 

... Three Sundays ago, I had my very first taste of the Virgin Labfest, this annual play festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. I caught Set E: Virgin Labfest 7 Revisited - essentially the three best plays from last year. It's probably the most hilarious, mind-tickling theater experience I've had. Cris Pasturan in Kawala, Ana Abad Santos and Frances Makil Ignacio in An Evening at the Opera, and the closeted quartet of Kafatiran - I bow to you. And I sincerely hope Abad Santos would reprise her Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

... Move over, Tobey Maguire - Andrew Garfield's Spiderman is so much more complex and carefully studied.

... Awkward, the MTV series about sexually active high school sophomores who look like college seniors, made my Saturday one of the funniest I've ever had. "What's up with the long faces? It's like a Sarah Jessica Parker convention in here."

Conquering the UP Medics' Poetry Tilt

So... I won both first and second prizes in this year's UP Medics' Poetry-Writing Contest, with the theme "Code Blue: Verses of Survival." Very thankful. The competition was open to all students of the UP College of Medicine and had two categories (English and Filipino) with separate sets of winners for each. There was no limit as to the number of poems one could submit, so I sent in four. As the saying goes, "winning once is great, but winning twice is greater." (I just made that up, yes.)

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Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, in Verse

(Runner-up) 

1.

When you said I was dying,

I thought you were talking of liberation

from lust. I thought you were talking

of permanent escape from one-night stands,

musty motel rooms, rubber condoms; I thought

‘dying’ was my new lease on life.

When you said ‘dying’ as a vague certainty,

like blank canvass and oil brushes, or blank stares

and oiled bodies, I was thinking of thought;

I was thinking of possibilities – those which can be,

which can only be – in mundane semantics.  

For what else could you have said; what meaning

could have hidden behind the vagrancy

of your sentence? That I was dying

must not have been among them.

2.

I would like to do a million things.

Slaughter sheep. Break some boy’s bones.

Drown ducklings. Cripple kittens.

Shoot an arrow straight at the nurse’s neck.

Strangle the doctor with his stethoscope.

I would like to do these things and a million more.

3.

When you said I was dying,

I thought of giving away the garden.

The orchids on the trellis, ceramic pots,

pliant bamboo straight from Sichuan.

I thought of giving away the dog.

the kitchen. the marble counters.

The parquet floor and Roman tapestries.

When you said I was dying,

I was ready to hand death over

in exchange for something smaller,

less grandiose – say, a new lease on life.

4.

I would like to bury myself beneath bags

of sand. Fill my guts with gravel, grind my flesh.

I would like to swallow the sea, and be swallowed.

I would like to burn, to bask in the false glory

of flames in a pyre. To play with fire, to turn

to ashes. I would like to sleep, and wake up

one with the embers.

5.

When you said I was dying,

and you said a million other things,

I picked up my suitcase, my somber delusions,

and a dandelion, dead, fallen on my feet;

I strapped on my sandals, steadied my staff

to part the swirling sea of sickness and sanity;

When you said I was dying,

I headed for the door, out to the garden,

and there, on the bushes, the first blossoms

of morning – my new lease on life.

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A Journey by Train

(Winner)

 

I would like to step on a train that will take me to places

teeming with people from the tip of a painter’s brush.

Such as sidewalk cafés swirling with strangers’ sweat

and stench, and cinnamon and cheese and coffee cups.

Such as boulevards by the bay and their emptiness

come evening, carefully cradling a city’s craggy coastline.

Such as galleries guarding a million murals, statues of naked men,

and sculptures scavenged from the sundried soil of Spain.

I would like to sit by the windows and see the countryside

fade to a blurry smudge, like pastel colours tainted with tears.

Meadows shall melt to muddles of green and yellow,

and sunflowers will be specks of sawdust in the air.

Trees will turn to wooden tinsels lined up in rows,

or toy soldiers, browned from battle, with wreaths on their heads.

I would like to let the tracks carry my carriage ‘cross stone bridges,

into verdant valleys carved from the bosom of mountains.

I would like to feel the shaking of steel beneath my rested feet,

as if I were in some bustling town, ‘stead of rustic country.

As if office buildings were made of stone and fertile soil,

and restaurants sat beside streams, and disco bars beside pasture.

Come sunset, the sky would burn a brazen, blinding orange,

and clouds would calmly drift like shiftless sheep in the field.

Come nightfall, the rain would gently wash grit and grime

off the silent, tired ground – gruff like the listless labourer.

I would like to capture more photographs in the camera

of my mind, but then the train would slowly come to a halt.

There in the heart of the woods, or the stone pavement of a station,

I would get off, bringing only my limbs, some pieces of luggage,

and the dreamy vividness of the journey. And soon wake up,

midnight, back on the coldness of my hospital bed.

Happy 85th Birthday, Oh Kind Sir!

I know this is a week late, but Pharma, and not procrastination, is to blame.

I find it hilarious, as do many others - in fact, virtually everyone who knows - that at your age, you still find the energy to wake up at 4-ish in the morning and jog around the subdivision before the crack of dawn. People my age can't even wake up early enough to get to class on time.

I think you have the most powerful knuckles your side of the age spectrum. Though you may hardly notice it, we cousins always exert a certain amount of control over your hand as we draw it to our foreheads for the requisite mano. You once quasi-punched me, do you know that? And that ring on your finger almost broke through my skin.

You walk like mad. You can actually "out-walk" almost all the girls in class. And you can "out-speak" those people as well, no doubt. Heck, you can "out-speak" everyone in the family (maybe except your eldest daughter, whose speech we've always compared to a buzzing bee). 

People say you're one of the kindest persons they've ever known, as if kindness were something that develops over time. I suppose they've met thousands of people in their lives to be able to say that.

I don't know - I've always thought you're innately kind, loving, everything superlatively good. But maybe that's just a grandson being biased.    

Happy 85th birthday to the best maternal grandfather in the world!

 

My Head Is Sort of Messy

So... I'm sick. I just produced my first yellow-green phlegm. Ugh. As it slowly slithered down the sink, I touched it. Felt like... oyster. Soft, moist, gooey. Just kidding. I didn't really touch it. But oh, the temptation was strong, it was.

It's mid-July. I get sick every year around this time. It's like my body had it scheduled when I was just a toddler. Or maybe it's the crazy cough-and-cold epidemic plaguing our noble lecture hall. 

I suppose it is kind of requisite for us medical students to fall ill every now and then. That way, we become more and more acquainted with the sick body. I've always liked crocodiles. I think we ought to have a crocodile sanctuary here in Manila. Like a really famous sanctuary that would pull the tourists in. They're starting international flights from Iloilo Airport by October. Cough. Sniff. I feel so random. Ugh.

We have our first pharmacology exam on Monday. I better get started.

 Highest score ever in Temple Run. What a loosah.

The First Two Weeks of LU4

The first two weeks of 2nd year med proper have passed, which means we have about thirty-four left to hurdle. The past week, we've done basic pathology, plus a day on nutrition (where we learned to do food exchanges) and two on pedagogy (or how to make a lesson plan - college level). Week 1 was a chill week; week 2 saw me studying every night from Sunday to Thursday (applause). 

Last weekend was a party weekend for me - three consecutive nights beginning Friday. It doesn't come close to my six-night party week last December, but this is just the start of the school year, so that makes it quite an achievement. 

On Friday, we had Fridate - the interclass party between our class (2016) and the freshmen (2017) - at Aquasphere along Roxas Boulevard near Malate Church. Ending: Wild drunken med school freshies in the pool. (Yes, there's a pool - and dress code was "beach attire," which, of course, I and many others didn't follow.)

On Saturday, we had Mednight - sort of like Prom, but only in med school - at the penthouse of Marc 2000 Tower in front of the Quirino Avenue LRT station. The last Mednight (then called MedBall) was more than a dozen years ago. Guess what - I was nominated for Mednight King (a great follow-up to my Best Hairstyle Award during prom of 4th year). Ending: Intoxicated Intarmed freshmen and sophomores, and med proper citizens. Drunken gathering at the fire escape stairwell. The best closing remarks I've ever delivered. 

It should be noted that there was free-flowing alcohol on both nights. And that medical students are one of the best party people in the world. 

Fridate. Photo by Terence Kua.

 

On Sunday, my godfather's daughter got married. Nothing significant, except that this is his second daughter to be married off within seven months.

The weekdays that followed were marked by some really interesting lectures from the most amusing lecturers. 

"It's not you who can't stand it anymore, it's meeeee." - Dr. Geraldino, immunopathologist, after rushing through his slides on the pathology of viral diseases to finally end the Monday morning. You know you have great teachers when even they act like students.

As of yesterday morning, all original dates for the four-weekend run of Atlantis Productions' Rock of Ages were virtually sold out. That has to be one for the books. So they opened two new shows, and yesterday afternoon, I tried to get a ticket. Guess what - no more good, reasonably priced loge center seats; they only had orchestra seats left. Heck, there's no way I'm paying P2000 for a show that hasn't yet received a genuine rave (meaning, from the Brantleys and Isherwoods of the local theater scene).

Instead, I paid P200 for a digital 2D screening of Rock of Ages the film. Guess what - I had a surprisingly and genuinely good time this afternoon. I think this awards season should at least consider nominating Tom Cruise and Catherine Zeta-Jones for their deliriously captivating supporting performances. And then there's Paul Giamatti playing the type he played in Big Fat Liar and The Ides of March.

You know, I actually don't understand why Rock of Ages sold out. It confuses me, if you must know.  

During class this afternoon, I killed a mosquito just by grabbing for it midair.  

Tomorrow is Saturday and I am so excited: I will be having both left third molars extracted!

Mednight. Photo by Jenn Gargar.