I’m giving this two stars because it frustrates my logic. Back in 2009, the year of Ondoy, I was fifteen years old, and was fully lucid during the entire drama and the unfolding of the events in the national tragedy. Even if my family did not suffer from the floods, we had refugees in our home for a month, and I was in constant contact with some who were dispatched out of their homes. I heard the increasingly alarmed voices on AM radio, I saw the pictures in the television and newspapers, hell, I was there when the rains poured and poured and didn’t stop. Three years ago, I experienced a national trauma, a topic which I conversed in with countless people over the next few weeks, a memory that I learned from and ruminated on and tried to reconcile myself with, just like the millions of Filipinos who will forevermore associate the term, “Ondoy,” with a chill in their spines and hearts. 

Ondoy is something that will always, always garner stories and emotions. It was more than just a typhoon—it was a colossal drama, something that you can’t make a book on without destruction, rescue, hope, fear, death. It’s just impossible because Ondoy was just that, and so much more. 

But After the Story: Stories of Ondoy is a collection of grade 7 essays crammed into a published compilation. I will admit that some are pretty well-written with slivers of the true fear during Ondoy. But they are few. On the whole, the book seems to have reduced Ondoy to blandness, as if the creation of this book was a chore that could be sloppily performed. The plan for this book is good; the execution is lacking. The essays gave me none of the fear for the lives of my fellowmen. It barely brought me back to those days when I wondered when the rain would stop, or if Manila would ever be the same again, or if, this time, after the bayanihan, the country would start to change for the better. 

When people say Ondoy, they think of stories. Everyone has their own. There are thousands of stories, and even more ways of telling them. You don’t need award-winning writers to tell stories. You just want to read the experiences that regular people went through. That was the tragedy, and at the same time, the beauty of Ondoy. I can’t find reason why After the Storm missed it completely. 

When people say Ondoy, they think of the entire Metro Manila landscape covered in water, trash hanging on to meters-high electrical wires, people playing basketball in the flood. When I think of Ondoy, I recall the treasure trove of amazing photographs that show us the despair of loss, the unity of villagers, the potency looming within each new low pressure area. This ‘Ondoy’ tribute gives none of that. There are a few pictures, but they are painfully mediocre and are three-by-four inch black and white icons on a bare page. 

Don’t even get me started on the front and back cover. It is shameful. 

At the end of the book, all I can say is sayang. The compilation could have been amazing, something that people would want to have for their own, something that they feel they had been part of. I just want to turn back time and barge into the editor’s office and tell him to redo the entire project. Nonetheless, I give two little stars: one, because despite the bleh and the fillers, there are some shining pieces of writing in here; and two, because all efforts to preserve collective national memory is always an act of service. In terms of execution though—producing a piece of work that effectively mirrors the trauma that Filipinos went through, with photos and a cover and everything else that is good in a book—as for that, well, I guess we’re still wading in the flood, trying to find our way.

I only recently discovered goodreads and it has greatly improved my life. 

The part two consists of a seance. There are six family members waiting in Russia..they were killed because of the sins of the father… Lola Tasia wants to be brought back to her home. She wants to be set back free. She is shrieking! But she will help you…she will help youuuuu…..

Still no conclusive evidence to the comedy. And this series of articles is coming from a country that claims to be making bold strides to “freethinking” and “scientific approaches.” 

There have been lots of pretenders to the Romanov lineage, but I think this is the first time that I’ve read about a pretender adamant about settling the truth about her true identity…from beyond the grave. 

Read all about Lola Tasia and her restless imperial spirit from beyond here and share my amusement..  

Bishop Robert Finn (Kansas City)

P Minny’s memorare armies are famous now! xD And they do claim it helped fund and finish a couple of stalled improvement projects.

Although it is Benedictine College. BU is in Chicago.

(via badwolfcomplex)

(via badwolfcomplex)

When I was eleven and in Boracay for the first time, my family plus two other friends were snorkeling off Puka Beach. In the waters as well were a bunch of Taiwanese people. 

Of all the people in the water, and all the places in the sea, I was the only one who got stung by a jellyfish. 

Most people get stung by the creature and feel a slight itch afterwards; I got onto the boat screaming in pain. If anyone thought it’s only because I had a low tolerance for hurtings, I would afterwards whip out my right ankle, which wore white stringy battlescars. I had them for at least half a year. Apparently it was a jellyfish of the deeper-sea kind. 

Needless to say, my whole concept of the ocean, of jellyfish, and of underwater recreation changed forever. And every time my family would once more visit the seaside (almost every year) I would always get into the water with the fear of the loathsome jellyfish lingering at the back of my mind, and I would have fun and dogpaddle along with the others, but I would have fun and dogpaddle with caution. 

This summer, my family visited Boracay again. We didn’t go snorkeling anymore because we already knew that it wasn’t spectacular; instead my dad said that we should go to the caves. So that’s where we went. 

It’s pretty cool because you have to crawl in this tunnel in the rock before you get to the cave. The mouth of it opens out into the sea and the whole point is to swim once you get there. 

So it was me, my dad, my sister, and this foreigner dude. Like I said, I always keep jellyfish in my mind whilst swimming in ocean water. So after about five minutes of cautiously wading, I decided to go to the shallow area, away from my family members, because I reasoned that the shallower the water was, the less likely there would be deep-sea jellyfish hiding around to yank my arm off my body. 

I thought wrong. Seven years later, in Boracay, I got stung AGAIN. I was swimming around when I felt the all-too familiar ZAP up my right arm. I did not think twice. It wasn’t a freaking shark—I could hug a shark. It wasn’t a fish, or anemone, or anything. It was the sniveling, cruel, detestable jellyfish. 

It wasn’t the same kind of jellyfish that had stung me and ruined my otherwise spotless childhood almost ten years ago; this time, it was pretty painful but the shock wore off quickly. It’s just really really itchy, and even tonight it still itch, and there is the same red slash across my skin. Even after years of building caution and avoiding the animal, the jellyfish has won yet again. 

And I know that this will not be the last. The jellyfish is still out there, waiting for me in its territory. And when I get back in the water, I know that I shall fail yet again. 

interjection, noun
1. a word frequently exhorted by Pinoys outside of the country. It is not so much a greeting as it is an implication of their mutual nationality. 
2. Pinoys never use “mabuhay” as a formal or casual greeting in everyday conversation. “Hello,” “Hey,” or “Kumusta,” is more often employed. 
3. Mabuhay is also written in bold letters in airports, airplanes, tarps welcoming tourists, or any such paraphernalia that would include promoting national tourism.  

-I had decided, and in fact had already announced to people, that I would take it easy at least during my first year of college. Meaning I wouldn’t get so much into extracurriculars. But I think I already have an org. I am guessing that if you go to their meeting, then you’re already in that org. And if they added you to their facebook. And if you’re fb friends with them. 

-This is somewhat off-topic but for the longest time I kept thinking that if I was ever going to wear nail polish, then I’d have to do it soon, because there’s only a small window of opportunity before June rolls in and I’d have to acetone the hell out of my fingers again. And then I realized that that was only a figment of many years of mental conditioning; LOL GURL you can wear anything you want in UP and no one will stop you. But you know I can’t shake off the feeling, I have to constantly remember and remember again.