Wednesday, March 25, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 284.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
I was walking home just now. The streets, although well-lit, were mostly empty because it was midnight. I found myself walking right behind a young woman, who looked like she worked as a nurse at the nearby hospital. The sidewalk was wide and also empty, but I found myself crossing the street, to walk in the same direction but on the other side. It was a subconscious thing that I did, and there really was no reason to. But a thought came to me later that I wanted to avoid being a possibly menacing presence for this woman, just because I was a man walking right behind her. Labels: life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, March 22, 2026
I’ve calculated my 50-year-old body’s response to stress now, and I think I need at least a week between events to fully recover and commit. I had two two-day workshops for the past two weeks, wrapping up with a grand tour on Thursday. Rested for two days. And then I had a directing stint today, started rehearsing at 1 PM for a 4 PM show that lasted three hours, and now I’m in bed, dead tired, and laughing at how pooped I am. But it was a beautiful show, and I was glad to do it.Labels: life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 283.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
6:30 PM |
Classes, Done!
It was a marathon of workshops but I finally held the last of my classes today! A huge sigh of relief, really. Now, it’s just all about the waiting and the receiving of my students’ final requirements, and then the grading. Can’t wait for this semester to be over! It was extremely short, which created a lot of class management problems, but I’m glad it’s almost over.Labels: silliman, teaching
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Friday, March 13, 2026
At one of my lowest depths in the days of the pandemic, when I was struggling mentally to just live through each day, I was tasked to teach a writing workshop for [bleep]. This was before I was diagnosed, by the way, and was properly medicated. [Or was this after I was diagnosed, but quit medication for more than a year because I thought I didn’t “really” need it? Who knows.]
But I accepted the challenge of a workshop, because the organizer is a very good friend, and I believed in the project. And the project paid. The thing was, the date of the event did not even sink into my consciousness, nor the brief. I forgot all about it. Eve of the first day, I was reminded by my friend that the whole thing was starting the next morning. Fine, I said. I can wing it. That next day, I realized it was to be a writing class with regional languages in mind. Fine, I can wing it, I thought. I've taught a workshop on writing in Binisaya before, anyway. Then when I was finally facing the participants, I realized that they came from all over the Philippines, and Bisaya would not be the primary language of most of them.
Dear God, I don’t know how I got through those three days just winging it — but I actually did supremely well, and their final activity, which involved a performance of some sort, was actually a highlight of the closing program. We even made a zine of their outputs! But I will never recommend doing the same thing to anyone. I was just lucky I had stock knowledge, and a well-spring of bravado and guts.
Please seek help if you feel like you’re flailing. I finally did a few years ago, and my life has been better because of it. [Although I still mostly wing it with life.]Labels: life, mental health, psychology
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
7:00 PM |
Let's Get Lit!
It’s the weekend, and I can honestly say the past week has been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had since the year started! A ton of academic work [with a looming graduation ceremony bearing down our necks.] And a lot of literary campaigns for the Dumaguete UNESCO City of Literature, particularly, and especially for the upcoming Dumaguete Literary Festival this April.
Today, March 13, we had a school caravan at NORSU, but last Tuesday, March 10, we did the same for Silliman University where I gave a talk educating Sillimanians about what it means for Dumaguete to be a UNESCO Creative City of Literature. Alana Narciso helped out by sketching the influence of Edilberto and Edith Tiempo on Philippine literature, and Kaycee Melon was part of a panel on AI and writing. Patch Puengan is the firebrand behind the Let’s Get Lit campaign. Medyo kapoy baya, pero padayon!
[Photos from The Weekly Sillimanian, slightly modified by me]
Labels: city of literature, dumaguete, dumalitfest, literature, philippine literature, UNESCO
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 282.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Friday, March 06, 2026
I feel so emotionally bruised right now, but I really needed to be firm. What do you when a student who has not been submitting any requirements whatsoever throughout the entire semester [in a class that uses the process approach], someone who you keep reminding again and again about these requirements [eliciting only vague promises], someone whom you have told that they can approach you during consultation hours for any problems they need advise for [and never did], someone who has been absent constantly ... suddenly approaches you at the eve of the class’ big presentation day, equipped with a sob story? I had to say no. His classmates worked hard to submit things on flexible time, and bending to his sob story would be highly unfair to them. I think there’s a lesson to be learned here about work and accountability. To [mis]quote the film director Jun Robles Lana, “You can be the most talented person in the world, but if you cannot submit things on time, you’re useless.”Labels: life, teaching
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, March 05, 2026
Tomorrow is the last day of the final exams week for graduating seniors at Silliman University, and the crunch is real. So many final requirements being wrapped up, my head is spinning, I have been working non-stop just to be on top of things academic since last week, but then so are my students. I try to just keep track of things, including my health, and hope for the best. But to echo everybody's complaint: this was an unusually short semester.Labels: life, silliman, teaching
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, March 04, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 281.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
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