Bitchy Ma’am Tessie

Jolens22 Comments

So believe it or not (believe it), I wasn’t always a self-deprecating dumb-ass who barely got through her acads. At one point in my origin story, I was actually pretty smart. Book-smart, math-smart — that brand of smart.

Unfortunately I peaked in grade school. Back then my marks were high enough to land me a spot in the Honor List even though all I did was show up. I never studied at home and I watched a lot of TV. The only time I truly cared was when we had to grow a plant for Science and I treasured my munggo seed like it was a mother’s most precious orchid. (I used to love botany, remember?)

One of my teachers then was Ma’am Tessie, a plump bespectacled guráng who put on smeared lipstick like an impish Bratz doll. Spoiler alert: Ma’am Tessie hated my guts.

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Excerpts

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A couple years back I wrote a draft for a post called “If Fonts Were People.” I wanted to personify the fonts that I use, but the task turned out to be a little too ambitious for my skills. Here’s a snippet:

It’s the font. My productivity relies heavily on pretty fonts.

Cochin has been my go-to recently. Cochin is pretty and petite, like a quiet chinita with perfect posture and who clips her bangs to the side. She dresses sharply like she’s always en route to a corporate meeting. And if you say the right things, you will see the stern sweetness in her smile. That’s what I long for when I write: I want the words to smile.

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Sunday Questions

Jolens6 Comments

I searched Google for “get to know you questions” and I found this. La la la, whatever.

What type of music are you into?

The last song I saved on Spotify is “Before We Begin” by Broadcast. (That doesn’t really answer the question, does it?)

What are your hobbies and how did you get into them?

I got into blogging because I genuinely enjoyed writing in high school. I got into painting/sketching because I was living out of town a couple years back and I was sooo bored. That’s when I sketched this Paraluman portrait and I thought, uy, masaya ‘to a!

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Sad Sunday

Jolens20 Comments

Today I’m sad and I don’t know why.

I’m stuck at a problem at work. Last week I was given a huge data set to analyze but I couldn’t extract the metadata that I need to crunch. The boss didn’t give me a deadline but still, I’m frustrated. Sometimes I think I’m too dumb for this job. Sometimes I also think that maybe I shouldn’t have abandoned writing as a career.

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Sunday Currently #4

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I am out of sorts again. I won’t bore you with the details but just to stay on brand, I am currently

reading an anthology of Filipino speculative fiction from the early 2000’s; one of the stories called “The Secret Origin of Spin-man” by Andrew Drilon is a genuine mood booster, i.e. nakakataba ng puso;

writing this post and nothing else;

listening to Yeah Yeah Yeah’s “Maps”;

thinking that many of my failures in life may have been caused by my tendency to procrastinate every, god, damn, time;

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February

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I welcomed February with exactly $0 in my bank account. Usually I save at least a hundred bucks after each billing cycle — but this month? Pff. I had nada.

“We got bills to pay,” sings Taylor Swift. So this month I paid the bills, I took charge of my brother’s rent (long story and not mine to tell) and I shouldered other expenses too. I couldn’t even let my paychecks simmer into oblivion. They were gone as soon as they arrived; it was instant sublimation.

But I’m fine, I guess. My family still eats regularly, I still have a job, and I can still afford to drink beer every now and then. I come from a lower middle class household so treading the fringes of financial stability isn’t new to me. I’m used to this; we’ll survive eventually.

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The Dead Body Theory of Friendship

Jolens23 Comments

Essie and I were having a typical chika session over canton in college when she started talking about this guy Carlo from our org.

“Do you think Carlo has friends?” Essie asked.

“Um, us?” I said. “Aren’t we his friends?”

“Sure,” she said. “But if you’re in grave danger, would you turn to him for help? Or if he’s in serious trouble, would you risk your life for him?”

My answer, at least at that time, was no. Maybe not.

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