Art in Paradise

This entry is sooooo last year! And yes, I’ve been attacked by the laziness bug yet again in updating this blog. However, I’ve come to realize that I have less than a week left in taking all my time to laze around.

By this time next week, I’ll start being quite busy for a while in settling down back in the country and in adapting yet again to the system and to the way of living. Isn’t it quite weird to re-adapt in your own country? Ahahaha.

So, I promised myself to spend the remaining time in doing all the backlogs in my entries in this blog or else, they will all just fall into eternal oblivion, into my eternal katamaran pala.

Last July, right after Ahne and I took our TOIEC exam in Chiang Mai (Which we passed with high scores! Wohoooo! Ang yabang. But promise, our scores would have caused all our elementary and high school, sige isama na pati university English teachers to have a pa-pizza party! Ahahaha!), we decided to look for Art in Paradise, a newly established 3D gallery in Chiang Mai, and the largest in Asia as of the moment.

Foreigners are charged for 500 baht as entrance fee in the gallery but since we had a working permit, we were charged with a very affordable price which is the same as what the locals are being charged of.

We were amazed with the size of the gallery---it is even way bigger than the Mind Museum in Seoul! With its size and the number of their artworks inside, they provided electrical outlets in all corners of the gallery for those who wish to charge their phones or cameras. 

And, since these two girls had already a training in Seoul *wink, ahahaha!*, we breezed through almost all the 3D artworks without a sweat *another wink*.

Faculty by Jerrold Tarog

This film talks about some serious issues but ironically, it tickled my funny bone. The last line of the character which is “Magtuturo ako ng high school.” sent me guffawing. That is because I might identify myself as the realistic character in the movie but the rebel/activist character was the very personification of me during my impressionable years (Remember the I-can-change-the-world phase that we’ve all gone through? That’s it. ) And that caused me to laugh. Remembering is not only bitter-sweet, this time, I labeled it as a bitter-sweet kind of “funny”.

I too was a rebel. On, second thought, the usage of word seems inappropriate. Rebel is such a strong word. But if questioning authorities and unclear traditions and laws and ancient political system is labeled as rebellious, so let’s leave that term as it is. That was the reason why my nanay was so hesitant to let me study in UP when I passed the entrance exam because she clearly knows my rebellious streak. I would definitely be the cause of her death if she sees me on television marching around with a red band on my head while raising my fist in the air. And believe me, I could clearly see myself doing just that way back, and so did my mother. So, UP was eliminated from my would-be-university list.

So what happened to me along the way? Tell anybody who knows me just about 5 years ago up to just recently about my rebellious streak and you’ll definitely hear, “Oh c’mon! She’s so level-head and mild-mannered." In fact, for about six years now, I can only count to about 3 instances when I flared out and shared a piece of my mind to people whom I think are already out of the line.

No, I didn’t become jaded nor cynical nor passive. I can never be those things even if I try.

I think that I have mellowed. I have evolved from a highly idealistic and impressionable yet, unscathed youth, into somebody who has witnessed and experienced some of life’s ragged and ugly realities.

So, this short video is a gift---a gift of seeing my would-have-been self had I not learned to tone down on my idealism.

Reclaiming My November

Amidst the dancing biraho grasses, 

she gathered the strength to claim

that she was in fact wrong,

that her November definitely extends up to now.

The only thing that changed is that her 

November extends no longer for him.

Waiting, stopped

being a dreadful thought, yet again.

It was fitting, she added,

that these grasses flourish in the cruel winter,

for she too, celebrates the winter chill even though she wasn’t built for it,

not because these grasses love the cold,

not because she loves the cold,

but, because it was cold, 

these grasses are a sight to behold in the glistening winter sun,

but, because it was cold,

she can fully embrace the warmth.

---Petchaboon, 19 December ‘13

#For that day, I celebrated the reasons for writing <you>, and the many reasons for stopping to. ;)

School Year-end Mushiness Overload....;)

This video turned my (Almost jaded, ahahaha!) heart into just pure slush.

When it was sent to me this morning by a student named Namphung (Thai word for Honey. See? Her name suits her very well. Sweet.), good thing I was able to stop myself from sobbing like an 8-year old kid inside the faculty room. And to think that I seldom cry.

I love these kids, with their wrongly spelled words and all. Every time I think of how far they’ve grown in terms of their learning and thinking skills, including their English conversation skill (They can now form coherent sentences with conjunctions---and that’s a GREAT LEAP!) ever since they’ve been into our classes summer of 2012, my heart could only burst with pride. And one should see them in their science class! From being passive and shy learners, they have evolved into learners who constantly ask questions (A lot of questions!) and even share their own thoughts and ideas. They are the kind of learners who would become so giddy during the days when we would get to have science experiments. And lastly, they are the kind of learners who would find a way to get into your heart.

What I’m very happy of is that they are not sad just because they would be losing a teacher but they are sad because they are worried that they wouldn’t get to learn as much----that means that these kids have embraced the love of learning. I’m happy that what is in their mind is NOT “Ang galling-galing mo teacher. Paano kung aalis ka na?”. Rather, “Teacher, ang galing-galing ko na! Sana yung sunod na teacher namin maturu-an din kami nang mabuti.”

As a teacher, I can only beam with pride. :)

To pacify them, here’s what I told them: “Don’t worry kids. I’m just on the other side of the ocean.”