2 New Things I Hope to Learn This Year: Playing the Guitar and Learning La Lengua Española

Been playing with my new toy, my guitar, since I got it a couple of days ago. I bought it from an office mate who sold it to me for only Php500. I don't know any guitar chord yet other than the two I learned to play Michael Frank's "Lady Wants To Know" a few years back. I was still in high school then. So right now I'm concentrating on hurting my fingers by making them get used to tapping the strings. They'll eventually have calluses, which is a signal that I can already start learning the chords while making sure I produce the sounds clearly when I strum the guitar. 

I just had my nails done and I love how they look like now so I'm still I'm only using the thumb on my right hand to strum.

Also, I've been trying to learn Spanish and I'm loving it so far. The website www.spanishdict.com has clips that are really helpful. Here are a few everyday phrases I have learned, so far:

It annoys me- Me molesta
I don't mind- no me importa
It gets on my nerves- Me saca se quicio
I don't know- No lo se
It's not worth it- no merece la pena
Maybe- quizas
Can i help you?- Le puedo ayudar?
It's all the same to me- A mi me da igual
No idea- No tengo no idea
Don't worry- No te preocupes
It depends- Depende
What's the point?- Para qué?
Poor thing- El pobre
Just coming- Ya voy
Darling- Cariño
By the way- A proposito
What shall i do?- Que voy a hacer?
So much the better- Tanto mejor
Too bad- Mala suerte

I'm enjoying learning these two, so far. Hopefully my interest in learning them won't fade after a few weeks.

Jose Rizal: Komikero

 

I read this interesting piece today about our National Hero. I never knew he did some comics too. He created the first known Filipino comic strip. Another reason to admire this guy.  Thanks to blogger Dennis Villegas.

While Rizal was staying with the Ullmer family in Wilhelmsfeld, he created a comic strip called “The Two Brothers,”which he gave Friedrich "Fritz" Ullmer as a gift. Fritz was the young son of his friend and host Pastor Ullmer. These comic strips, along with several other drawings and sketches done by Rizal during his stay with the Ullmers, are intact to this day. The Ullmer descendants kept these precious mementoes and were eventually discovered by Mrs. Paz Mendez (of the Jose Rizal National Centennial Commission), while she was traveling to Germany to retrace Rizal’s footsteps.

 You can read the entire blog by clicking the link below.

 http://dennisvillegas.blogspot.com/2011/06/rizals-self-portrait-circa-early-1880s.html

Addicted to Amy

I spend most of my time staying at our apartment's kitchen these days. That's where I can usually be found when I'm not at work. I'd be sitting there facing my laptop, tapping the keys when I'm writing something or chatting with people. Most of the time I can be seen watching clips on YouTube, where I find videos I refer to as precious gems. Below is just one of those that I found recently. Aside from the genre, and the late Amy Winehouse's voice giving life to it, its lyrics is beautifully honest. I've listened to different versions of it already.

Listen to this song and get addicted to Amy with me.

Still Alive

So I haven't posted anything here for months. I found something I like doing and it has been taking much of my time. It's a secret I might write about on my future posts. And yes that was an excuse. The real reason I disappeared was that I got lazy. I haven't even been sharing my thoughts on facebook which I used to do a lot. Is this a sign of aging? That must be it. I'm getting old.

So how have you guys been? Come here and have some coffee with me.

I Still Prefer This French Clip

I just saw the official music video of the song "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen and I found myself not liking it so much. Yeah the guy was cute but the concept wasn't original. It reminded me of this 1995 music video of a French singer named Zazie, which I discovered a couple of years ago. This still remains to be one of my favorite clips on YouTube: 

This is beautiful, Frank

I haven't heard of Frank Ocean before the news of his coming out last week. All I knew was that he did it through Tumblr. Since he was unknown to me, then, I ignored the links and updates about him even if they seemed to be on all of the blogs I visit frequently, and on my Facebook feed.

A couple of hours ago, since I got nothing better to do, I checked one of the links about him just to finally know what made this guy's coming out so special. I got my answer after one of the links led me to his Tumblr page. And suddenly it felt as if this guy has been a long- time friend who wrote to me. It was a post entitled “Thank You’s.” A note so familiar, that I involuntarily made a short pause after reading it. It’s the kind of thing I usually do after realizing that finally, there’s another human being who felt exactly what I did. A great part of its contents was composed of happy and painful thoughts the younger me used to have. It’s sad and beautiful at the same time. Just what I’ve always thought this life has been, for me, at least.

Here’s the post that made me an instant fan of this guy:

Going Back to Poetry

It's been more than six years since I last wrote a poem. The life I found as an adult in the big city, the new people I met, and the internet came into my life and, it's as if I have forgotten the art that has been my companion growing up. It saddened me to realize this, especially knowing how much poetry, as a form of expression has helped me survive the most difficult times of my life as a teenager. Good thing I got to reunite with Athena Garcia and Rey Carlo Sajulan, two of those people whose mere presence, not to mention, poems. reminded me of what it is that I lost and that I have to regain. 

Here's a poem I wrote recently as an attempt to resurrect the little god in me by creating a little world, through the power of words and imagination.

Poetry and I

When I think of poetry, I think of a precious gem,
Teasing me from a place so high and too far for me to reach.
It's an uphill climb,
A foggy mountain top
Which chokes me as I raise a foot
And move towards it.
Veins in my eyes get visibly bold,
Glowing like neon lights in downtown whorehouses
And on otherwise dark alleys with dancing and flying candy wrappers,
Flattened cigarette butts,
Corners that reek of the smell of old and dried urine.
Places, I think, you'd cringe even at the thought of visiting alone.
And those veins, they're lights that grow bigger and bigger
And then burst.
Blood splatters
And flow like lava from the angry volcanoes
which are my eyes,
I'm blinded.
I can't see my paper
Nor feel the presence of my pen.

It's an uphill climb
Every word, seems to give more strength
To that hand that pulls me down
Tightens it's grip in every attempt to conceive
A line that contains both truth and beauty at the same time.
I haven't gone that far
'Cause I am being pulled down.
My own shadow, my past, pulling me down
As if preparing me to drown
And die from that quicksand below
Where my doubts, my feeling of hatred towards myself
Are calling me, asking me
Begging me to join them in their misery
After I buried them deep on the ground
Not too long ago.

Quicksand, tomb of my past.
It's filled with thumb- sucking, jackstones, magazines under the bed, used rubbers,
Crucifixes hidden in the drawer, dusty, untouched rosaries, dried tears on my pillows
Forming dead shadows of that world that exists only in my dreams.

I am being pulled down, blinded and out of breath
My hands, shaking
My feet, groping the floor for the pen
And where it went, after it fell, I don't, anymore, know

So here I am together with the sound of the crickets
And spirits that watch me from afar
Making sounds that seem to celebrate my failure
Snickering at the thought that the art of poetry
Remains distant to me.
I give up.
I can't touch it.
It's a mountain I can't climb.