Category: Win

Embracing your demons is knowing they don’t define you

Overanalysis Paralysis : It is hard to be me sometimes.

There were times, without knowing how she got there, she would find herself back in the damp and dangerous darkness, alone.  It was a familiar place, filled with dread and despair and the moment she took a whiff of the stench she used to know well, it hit her. No wonder nothing brought her joy, she thought. No wonder her smile felt heavy and fake. No wonder she felt like each step she took was like slogging through miles of thigh-high mud.  She realized that her heart was cloaked by the very same things that once made the tumors in her body grow malignant. How long has it been?  There was no more time to waste.  She knew she had to run back to where there was light.

The old script didn't work

She used to handle it differently, of course.  Before, when she understood less and was confronted with the inevitable and unbearable, she would deny, resist, fight what made her sad, scared and insecure, what made her hate herself, thinking it was the way to smother her demons. In the end, the dreaded beasts would multiply and torch what was left of her with their fiery breath.  It took years to painstakingly pick out from the embers, the little that was left of her flesh and bones; part of the slow process of putting back the pieces to arrive at a recognizable self.

This time though, the moment she was aware she was spiraling down the darker chambers of her heart, she knew better.  She understood that avoidance and escape would only bring searing pain.  And projection and denial would bring her sure death. So, she put her trust in what she now believed in and just embraced it. All.  She embraced the things that made her wrong.  The things that made her angry, scared, envious, selfish and greedy.  The things that made her what she used to be.  She also embraced forgiveness. All the forgiveness in the world.  And just like that, the demons retreated into their creepy caves, deep caverns and damp dungeons, whimpering with their jagged tails tucked between their legs. Some monsters melted into the earth. Others shrank, slithered into the fissures they emerged from and the weakest of them, disappeared into thin air.  Soon, the light peaked past every crack and crevice, then broke through with wild rays, which allowed her pale face to bask with relief in its recognition. She knew she was back home where she belonged. The scales on her heart were no longer there.

Sigh.

It made her feel good to know that even if she may never understand why she sometimes ends up in the dark, she was confident in the fact that she would always find her way back to the light.

No matter what.

The bearable lightness

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”
— Mary Oliver

grateful slice: trusting and knowing better

Ode to a mentor and on being inspired

I’ve been teaching at the same school for almost seven years now and these have been some of the best years of my life/teaching career.  Almost everything I know about being a teacher I learned from being at this school and because of that there is little I wouldn’t do for it.   It’s not perfect, mind you, but the people there are like family and the school, like a second home.

My second home for the past six (going on seven) years

So when I was told late last school year that I was going to get to work with MM to do the MYP Induction Workshop for the new teachers this coming school year, I was like, ohhhh yeee-aaah.  I thought, what a great way to give back again; to pay it forward. It also felt awesome to be given another chance to do the same workshop better (last year I was able to co-lead it with our headmaster, PR, which was cool but erm, it was far from ideal); plus wow, to be able to work closely with MM again on something we both feel passionate about, a real honor.

Actually, after analyzing the long and short of it, I just really missed her.  I mean sure we would see her during Parent Teacher Conferences (for T her son who was my student for two years and already graduated from Middle School) or share laughs and recycled jokes during the occasional reunion lunch or “sorryfood” dinner but it just wasn’t the same as seeing each other and being hams every single day.  She was my first friend at Beacon, the first person I bugged every hour for an entire term when I was leading the Night of the Notables project during my first year as a Grade 6 teacher and she was  the one I cried to with no shame when I wasn’t sure what the hell I was doing.  She tells the best stories, recommends the best books and laughs at my dumbest jokes.  She was also my MYP coordinator for three years and I miss her guidance and mentoring to bits.  From her wisdom, her counsel, her quick wit and sage advice, it meant a lot that she believed in me even when I was not sure how to believe in myself.

Early last year, we were fortunate enough to land a stint as workshop leaders in the same place (the IB regional workshop in Adelaide) and between the many layovers in  what seemed like a million airports from Manila to Australia, she told me exactly what I needed to hear right when I needed to hear it.  You know, like the oracle in The Matrix, but a younger and more fash-yon version.  LOL.  (She can knit like a ninja too.)

At a tapas bar with Amelie, Grant and Ros in between workshop days, Adelaide, Jan 2010.

This is MM.  We were being silly tourists trying to take a cheeky shot of someone to show the sorryfood peeps – inappropriate butt shot of man not here.  Adelaide, Jan 2010.

Anyway, she moved to teach at the high school last year and boy, did we all feel her absence in our telephone booth  cum faculty lounge. I know. I know.  Change is a good thing. But some of us have a slower pace at letting reality sink in.  We all process change differently.  And I had to go through many things before getting closer to fine. 🙂

So yeah, definitely, it was a real treat to be able to work with her at the tail end of the summer right before the teachers needed to come for in-service.  I learned so many things as we planned and collaborated, got to share and be inspired while co-teaching with one of the smartest teachers, I know.  It felt good to see how we’ve both grown so much in many ways and man, great to know that some things remain the same — like the ability to laugh at really inane things until we’re tearing and to make inappropriate comments with gumption, usually in faculty lounges. Apir.

I took a lot of photos along the way via Instagram. Here they are.  Goodbyes come in many forms and  I just don’t want to miss a thing.

Tired planning feet. Another productive day at the Beacon Academy

Taking a break

 

Planning and collaborating for weeks. This is Version 1 of 8 of our MYP Workshop planner

The sibling programs : BA’s session on the programme continuum and me being epal

Student work framed for the faculty lounge @BA; Road trip down South to get the juices flowing.  MM wasn’t even there.  

View from the Beacon Academy, 2nd floor.  Took this right before going back to working on our keynote

Sometimes we left early. 🙂  

Road trip shot with Laoshi. Tiltshift addiction

One time we left VERY late.  I have an effing picture of the moon!  

Finally, it was day one. Started with this: No such things as dumb questions

The Inquiry Cycle through their eyes. A few sessions in

Their version of the Inquiry Cycle … post watching the Fairy Scientist

On the second day, MM and I cam whored while they worked.

Tired workshop feet; vowed not to wear heels for day 3

Which brings us here, all questions addressed and on the highway. End of day 3

I will miss working on our workshop in BA.  Fresh air, the quiet and the calming drive there

 So again, here’s to a new school year.  I claim your greatness.   And finally, here’s to awesome begins and slow goodbyes. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
 
 
i thank You God for most this amazing 
by ee cummings (1894-1963)

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any–lifted from the no of all nothing–human merely being doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

grateful slice:  mentors, a successful workshop, learning and the friends we make along the way

Dying to self & the mentors we love

Again, a great TED talk I stumbled upon while preparing for my workshop. Which I am in the middle of. Which explains the silence. Day one and two down. One more day to go. So far, I think things have been going fairly well. The participants are awesome and am really glad for the opportunity to do this workshop two years in a row. Learned a lot from last year. Wiser me and having a workshop leader partner on the same page has made for a better workshop all together.

Anyway, I hope to carve more time to write soon because there’s really much to write about.

Right now, I just needed to quickly stop and say that I am feeling very grateful and happy. Extremely exhausted but really happy. Because, well, things are as they should be.

Also because I am working very closely with one of the best/smartest teachers/people/workshop leaders I know. The original mother goose, MM. I will miss this woman to bits. Really. (A future post on her coming soon.) Even if she was never officially my teacher in a classroom, she is my El Kapitan.

Mudakiz and Junakiz in Adelaide. January 2010 MYP Regional Workshop

Thanks, G. For this awesome opportunity.

grateful slice: the demise of the dysfunctional self and mentors who believe in us (even when we didn’t know how to believe in ourselves).

Weekly Photo Challenge: Refreshing and P.S. Wish you were here (a deleted addendum)

Nothing more refreshing than a vacation after a vacation, approximately three weeks before school/work begins again.

Last week, my procrastination took me and a good friend, Tara,  to one of my favorite familiar places in the Philippines, Boracay Island.  It’s an abused, over-commercialized, exploited slice of heaven on earth.  The sand is like powdered milk, the fresh fruit shakes to die for, happy hour to live for and even if we were in the middle of Typhoon Falcon, just being near the ocean was a special treat for this workaholic.  Here are some snaps from that week-long trip.  Thanks for passing by. Hope these shots refresh somehow. Wish you were there.

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Ode to the sea by Pablo Neruda

Here surrounding the island,
There΄s sea.
But what sea?
It΄s always overflowing.
Says yes,
Then no,
Then no again,
And no,
Says yes
In blue
In sea spray
Raging,
Says no
And no again.
It can΄t be still.
It stammers
My name is sea.

It slaps the rocks
And when they aren΄t convinced,
Strokes them
And soaks them
And smothers them with kisses.

With seven green tongues
Of seven green dogs
Or seven green tigers
Or seven green seas,
Beating its chest,
Stammering its name,

Oh Sea,
This is your name.
Oh comrade ocean,
Don΄t waste time
Or water
Getting so upset
Help us instead.
We are meager fishermen,
Men from the shore
Who are hungry and cold
And you΄re our foe.
Don΄t beat so hard,
Don΄t shout so loud,
Open your green coffers,
Place gifts of silver in our hands.
Give us this day our daily fish.

grateful slice:  post scripts about the beach and feeling refreshed by the sea

Whirlwind Week and the Weekly Photo Challenge: Morning

Morning Snaps from various places.

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All photos taken by a Nikon D90. Here, there, everywhere.

********************

P.S.  It’s been a whirlwind week since I got back from Mumbai.  So far, I’ve spent time with family (made up for missing my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary renewal of vows thing), planned succeeding summer break trips (Boracay next week and HongKong end of July), seen a ton of movies (Super8, Green Lantern, Hangover 2, Kung Fu Panda 2 and  X-Men First Class, and Unknown — yes, I am a film nut too), edited and finished a short video for work, had several work meetings (planning an induction workshop) and spent time  or shared a meal with friends, colleagues and former students.  Which explains why I have not gotten to writing my three part post on India.  So, I am sorry about that, but it’s coming soon for sure. 🙂

Thanks for passing by and again, to everyone who took the time to drop me a line on my FP post, a bazillion times over, thank you.  🙂 Really really  really appreciate it.

grateful slice:  mornings and being back on the grid

On Leaving this Maximum City

You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place, like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be this way again. 

Azar Nafisi

Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

I overheard some of the vendors in Colaba a few days ago talk about the monsoon coming exactly on the tenth of June and well, here it is. Pouring, cooling the earth, clearing the streets and cleaning the air.   I wondered then how they could be so sure, so confident that the rains would come today and be correct.  I see now that this confidence is the same one they have on the streets — where one rick knows that zooming into a small space between two huge trucks won’t mean imminent death.  I mean, the rain has been coming and going for an hour or two for days but nothing like this.  It would tease us sometimes, especially on days we didn’t bring our umbrellas and surprise us with a sudden downpour while in a rickshaw, dressed and on our way to a night out with friends.  Today, as we decide to stay in to pack and just chill before we both leave (me to go back home to Manila and S to NYC to meet her love), the rain is like a gift from the heavens. Even if everything is gray, the awareness of a season ending is also healing in a way. It, of course, does everything to nurture and feed my ennui right now.  Just the thought of leaving Mumbai makes the tears well up in my eyes.  I feel like an open wound exposed to saltwater.  The sting is sharp and almost unbearable but I know the sea will make it all better if I persevere.  And S is spot on…the sadness can only be appeased by the promise of return.  I have no choice but to make sure I come back to this magical place.   S and I burst into laughter every now and then to stop me from crying and from enabling my melodrama.   Maximum feelings for this maximum city.

Suketu Mehta, the author of “Maximum City”  talks about how his currency is stories.  “Stories told for stories revealed…stories from other worlds, carried over the waters in caravans and ships, to be exchanged for this year’s harvest of stories. A hit man’s story to a movie director in exchange for the movie director’s story to the hit man.  The film would and the underworld, the police and the press, the swamis and the sex workers, all live off stories; here in Bombay, I(author) do too.”  I feel like writing about Mumbai (prologue) when am back home will keep me afloat and sane for awhile. Thus, the writer’s delay.  That’s how I will pay. With poetry and photos and stories about my trip, but from a distance.  Photographs have been saving me these days too.  Thank you, decisive moment.   Here are some favorite snaps that reveal some of these maximum emotions.

Ennui from my reluctant subjects: Bandra Fort

Sadness in her eyes: Haji Ali Shrine

The gaze of a hungry traveller

the smile of someone who will definitely come back: Western Railway en route to Mumbai Central

Actually, seeing past the melodrama, S and I already have a plan:  Next time I come back, I will invest in the old cameras that they sell in Colaba.

Old cameras that remind me of my brother

You will be mine, oh yes, you will be mine!

Mumbai: Land of negotiations. This man gave ma big discount for my gift for Mr. Tandem after I hung out and took pictures of his stall for awhile

S and I will visit an Indian village, do more heritage walks and see Juhu during the day.  Then there’s the rest of beautiful, complex and schizophrenic India which I intend to visit, photograph and write about. Perhaps when the sun is not so treacherous. Yes, in the land of NO, this is definitely not goodbye.  Until then, Mumbai, see you in my dreams and my mind’s eye.

I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. Such is life, imaginary or otherwise: a continuous parting of ways, a constant flux of approximation and distanciation, lines of fate intersecting at a point which is no-time, a theoretical crossroads fictitiously “present,” an unstable ice floe forever drifting between was and will be. The Adventure called and I followed with my thumb like a character being written by an intractable author. Which, of course, I was.

– Sol Luckman

grateful slice:  Knowing when you are leaving a place, returning and the currency of images and text, traveling

One Big Ball of Svelteness

A thousand times over, thank you

Just when I thought  things couldn’t get any better — they do!  First this.  Litratula.com is back from its Argentinian sabbatical.  Win.

And Litratula is BACK! : )

And then this.  Freshly pressed goodness!

I am once again so humbled by this gesture.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for featuring this post that’s so close to my heart.

And a thousand times over,  thank you everyone for your wonderful comments, subscriptions and for well, passing by.  Am totally stoked you guys did.  I am very grateful for this today.

Freshly Pressed Love

What a way to end another perfect day in Mumbai.  Maximum times.  Win!  Stay tuned! 🙂

grateful slice:  Wordpress, being freshly pressed, Litratula and perfect days

India 2.0: Eat, Pray, Surrender (a photo prologue to a three part post)

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke

A complicated, intertwined blob of ideas and feelings are swirling amok in my head and my heart right now. Like the intricate maneuverings of a hand with a loom patiently stitching together a unique pattern for a silky Indian shawl, I can’t think or write fast enough to capture the vocabulary fit to describe what India has been like for me during this trip. Only until the pattern is done and the shawl is ready to be purchased as a piece of art by an unassuming traveler and storyteller, will the experience fall into some state where discernible articulation is possible. Amidst the heat that has snuck up on me and has felt like concrete on my skin, flavors and textures that have not ceased to burst in my mouth, the architecture and history porn, and the bedlam and mayhem I face and accept everyday since I’ve been here, I am once again, categorically and unquestionably smitten by India. Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu was unforgettable. And now, Ahmedabad and Mumbai, especially South Mumbai, have carved their special corners in the cavities of my heart.

A Quiet Moment in Ahmedabad, Jiten

It’s not easy though, to write about India while still in India. G knows, I’ve tried. And it’s not a problem of not having anything to say as senses feel like they are on steroids. In fact, my extreme and exag ways interlace and lock quite nicely in this maximum city as the overstimulation goes on overdrive. The problem really is where and how to begin …How do I begin to write about a place so chaotic, so crowded and full of contradictions; a place so colorful, and jam-packed with flavors that just won’t quit? How do I explain the intensity of the Heat I thought I already intimately knew growing up in Manila? Where do I begin to describe the ebb and flow of the streets where the willing, surrendering soul can eventually meld with the anarchy , just as long as he/she learn the ways of the inexplicable pace and movement of the waves to not get killed on the road?

Writings on Mumbai, edited by Jerry Pinto and Naresh Fernades

Words are too limited and incomplete right now to describe the first moment I laid eyes on The Gateway of India. My body reacted for me and I got a nose bleed instead.

The Gateway of India. Breathtaking.

In the middle of taking a photograph of a man in green blowing bubbles, and after a postcard salesman tried to slip me some weed, blood started too ooze out of my nose and on to my favorite scarf. I wiped the blood with the back of my hand and memorized that Mumbai moment as onlookers stared at me, the nose bleeding voyeur who stuck out like a sore thumb.

The man in green and the bubbles

And what about the people I’ve met…where do I start when it comes to talking about just how great they have been? It’s both an exciting and daunting task, to write about how their stories and lives have moved and inspired me, to aptly pay homage to their significance (I see you) and to express my deep gratitude to them and to G, for making this trip exactly what it is. Amazing and unforgettable.

From my best friend, sister and gracious host, @sacha_wc; Jiten and Jaya, the coordinators at The Calorx school in Ahmedabad; Viren, our brilliant guide during the Taj Hotel Tour, who can speak a gazillion languages; plus all the strangers I bumped into, smiled at and asked for directions, I am extremely grateful for you today.

Papad Salesman at the Crawford Markets

Veggies on the street

Silver Sales Lady at Law Garden in Ahmedabad

Speedy Delivery, Pali Hill near the Promenade

Sad man by the Red phone, Colaba, South Mumbai

Rick Meter. This was a dangerous shot to take.

Reading, Writing and Living Mumbai

Promenade, Carter Road, Bandra

at the Flower Galli, Crawford Market Tour, South Mumbai

"Temple" near The Calorx School, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

So Eat, Pray, Surrender. An up and coming three part post of my (mis)adventures in India: Ahmedabad and Mumbai legs. 🙂 Stay tuned as I let the pictures tell the stories today. In the meantime, I need to live the questions, I need to live everything right now so …”perhaps I will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” I am hoping, at some point, I will find the way and the words to write about my experiences in this truly maximum part of the world. Hope is a good word and memories catch up with us rather quickly.

grateful slice: India, Mumbai,Ahmedabad and Rilke.

Inquiry and The Fairy Scientist

Preparing for workshops is a lot of work.  It’s stressful, collaborative, special, invigorating, fulfilling, nerve-wracking, life giving and humbling.  Which makes it a favorite thing to do (second to doing the actual workshop, of course.) Another thing too is, it’s a process that involves discovering a lot of really cool things to use.  Here is the latest one I found (through Ashish T. from the IB) while preparing for my assessment workshop.   I will use it to introduce the Inquiry Cycle.

This one totally reminded me of my students, especially the svelte individuals who are part of The Potluck Collective.  The little girl reminds me of Bob O Riley most of all.  (insert in a whisper: They are real…)

grateful slice:  discovering cool stuff