Fiyero's Pensieve

Prequels Rock

2008-02-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

My grandfather sent me my genealogy on my father's side. It's kinda interesting. Everything's in his own words. I tried to keep the spelling exactly as it is:

Nov. 08, 2007

Dear Bobby,

Re: your requests for our ancestral blood lines (Canlas and Songco) for Gino's use, I can only recall the 19th century history of our blood line since I was born in the year 1924 despite the mental lapses and other age-related ailments that is bothering me. These are the reasons why the US gov't officially declared me "Senior Citizen. and Disabled" before we left for good in 2002, to spend our sunset years in retirement for good in the country of our birth. The era before our great grandparents is cloudy since they all joined our Creator a long time ago. Whatever knowledge I have are mere guess and speculation. Here is where I can go so far insofar as the Canlas and Songco and Tayag ancestral blood lineage is concerned: -

CANLAS
Grandfather: died before my time
Grandmother: Damiana N. Canlas. I've known her for only 5 years.
My father: Arsenio Nalud Canlas died early at age 32, leaving 4 children with me as the eldest
My mother: Fredesvinda Songco Canlas. She died at age 92. A very enterprising widower who raised us in good health, disciplined and hard working up to high school.

The Canlases excel in artistry, industriousness and skilled workers. One was a well-known sculptor in Pampanga. Arsenio, my dad, and brother Cayetano are the Nos. 1 and 2 department heads, mainstays of Gonzalo Puyat and Sons, Inc., furniture, billiard and bowling fabricator and metal products, respectively. Regrettably, they departed early in life. The Canlases are fair-complexioned and slender.

SONGCO
Grandfather: Kapitan Undong Songco
Grandmother: Gregoria Santiago Songco
My mother: Fredesvinda S. Songco, a choir member of the Sta. Rita church since a teenager and renowned hilot sa mga napipilay (sprained veins and muscles) a god-given skill till she departed

The Songcos are professional musicians, tailors and haberdashery. They are well-built, white-complexioned, food connoisseurs, but hard to deal with as head of families. common health problem is Diabetes.

TAYAG
Alejandro P. Tayag: Lawyer and Judge died at age 62.
My father-in-law: from
Paulino Santiago Tayag: Professional Registered Nurse
My mother-in-law: from Betis, Pampanga

The Tayags are brown-complexioned, mostly curly-haired, from Paulina, high cheek bones. The Tayags being highly intelligent, are mostly professionals, i.e. engineer, lawyer, medicine and accounting fields. The eldest Tayag is a farmer who contributed much in the education of his yougner brothers.

Paulina S. Tayag, the original professional nurse since way way back at the old San Juan de Dios hospital in Manila. To my mind Apung Poleng delivered the most babies in Sta. Pampanga, Proj. 04, QC and Florida Blanca also in Pamp. Curly hair, prominenet high cheek bones, Kayumangi complexion, and thick lips are her trademarks passed on to Mommy, Tita Fe, April, Erica and Kay. If my memory serves me right, Roy and Philip were deilvered in Proj. 04, QC by Apung Poleng. After giving you the highlights of the three ancestral traits, physical-mental traits, common diseases, etc. below is a graphic tabulation of your bloodlines.

--

The above is based on my own analysis and judgment, as they related to physical build, complexion, facial features, mental capabilities, etc.

The Phils. like the USA, is a multinational combination of various races. The USA has its brown Americans or American Indians and the Phils. has its Aetas. Pinoys have Polynesian, Malaysian, Indonesian origins. The Spaniards ruled the Phils. for about 300 years so that we have the surnames of Garcia, Reyes, Gutierrez, Rodriguez, dela Cruz, etc. Then came the Americans for another 100 years. The establishment of Naval bases in Cavite and Olongapo, and the air bases in Pampanga also introduced new blood in the Phils. The Japanese who occupied the Phils. in 1941-1944 didn't seem to introduce Jap-Phil. blood, the chinese who came to the Phils. as merchants and traders way back in the 18th and 19th centuries established families in the Phils. That's why we have plenty if Uys, Tans, Gosico, Chans, Sis, etc. the Coangcos and the Songcos have a springkling of Chinese blood.

I trust the above info could be of good help to whatever Gino plans to do, aside from the usual family tree.

Bye for now. God Bless.

P.S. I hurriedly did the above at short notice. If you desire add'l info let us know.

In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee?

2007-12-10T05:24:00.000-08:00

How do you measure a year?

How should I measure this year? Within the past few months, I’ve experienced more than I usually do within years. This year was an explosion of memories.

...choir concerts...running after trains...journal entries...musical road trips with Eli...emergency rooms...skimming the phosphorescent seafloor...killing myself laughing at Harry/Draco fanfic with Ana...

This year was the beginning of many wonderful things; however, it was also the end of so many others. This story begins with a beginning and an ending. The first half of the semester was finished, and we were celebrating Sara’s 21st birthday...and boy, did we celebrate. The day after, dazed and confused, we dispersed in all directions from Avignon to go on our own separate adventures for two weeks. I went East.

Before I set off to Italy, I went to pick up my mom at Charles de Gaulle airport. We had planned to take a night train to Venice, continue to Florence, and then go back to my place in Provence where my mom would be staying for a week.

But, as many of you may have noticed, my life was cursed before birth to be a perpetual adventure, exciting and annoying. My mom’s flight was delayed for 24 hours, meaning we would miss our train to Venice. So there I was, in the heart of Paris, carrying a week’s worth of clothing and supplies, with no place to sleep. After several hours of being Mary and Joseph on a donkey in Bethlehem, being turned away from fully-occupied hostels, I eventually found a place to sleep for a few short hours.

Early next morning, I found my mom at the airport, with her hair cut shorter than it was when I last saw her. Having already lost one day, we wasted no time. We no longer had a direct train to Venice so we had to hop on and off of several trains to try and make it there. We took a train from Paris to Lyon, and then another from Lyon to Chambéry, and from Chambéry, we hopped on a train to Milan.

It was pretty late when we arrived in Milan. There were no more trains to Venice until the next day. We were stuck in Northern Italy, again with no place to sleep. So we roughed it and slept on benches. I was pretty proud of my mom. Most women would have started crying and complaining at our cold and dusty situation but she just saw it as another adventure.

6 AM the next day, we caught another train and we finally arrived in Venice...and it was marvellous to behold. Canals, gondolas, vaporetti, pigeons outnumbering tourists...it was all too wonderful. We devoured all of it...including the pizza and gelato. We did not devour the pigeons, just for the record.

The day after, we were back on schedule. We got on the train to Florence where we would be staying for three nights. It was a big, beautiful city full of art, history and culture. I missed Charlie here more than ever. She'd know why. Anyway, my mom and I walked all the streets, crossed all the bridges, climbed all the heights. The Statue of David was a particular highlight. It was more enormous than I had ever expected it to be. We also explored the Boboli gardens, which beat all my expectations. Our hostel was also the nicest out of the many I’ve stayed at. The markets, too, were more than awesome. We squeezed the most out of the city, not to mention its environs. We also managed to squeeze a day trip to Pisa to see the Leaning Tower.

All things come to an end, and eventually we had to leave Florence. On our way back to Avignon, we explored quite a few of our train stops: like the villages climbing up mountain slopes in Genova, and the seedy parts of Nice.

We eventually made it to Avignon. My body, aching for surrender, was glad to be home...NOT. While I was gone, the water in my apartment had been shut off by the water company. Welcome home, Gino! I had La Vie Bohème playing in the back of my head. The day after, we snuck into a hostel bathroom to take showers. I then had to go back to school. The absence of water meant the absence of a flushing toilet, so during the day we would use the bathrooms at my university and any other place we can find. Another unwelcome adventure. I got the water back after a few days so no worries.

During my mom’s stay here, she explored the city while I was at school. After classes, I’d take her around the area. I gave her more exercise than she needed, I think. I got her all the way up to Fort St. André in Villeneuve, on foot, climbing paths not intended for human beings. During the weekend, we took a guided tour of Provence. We went to St. Rémy and Arles, where there are ruins of Roman amphitheatres, arenas and monuments, and a lot of the scenes that Picasso painted. We also went to Baux de Provence, which was a medieval village perched on top of the Alpilles (“little Alps”). The Mistral was blowing at 50 km/hr so it was a wonder we weren’t blown off the mountain.

Sunday, the day after, I took my mom back to Paris where she would have to catch her plane to Vancouver on Tuesday. I took her around some of the places I’d already visited. The Venus de Milo waved at me armlessly like an old friend. For two weeks, my mom enjoyed Mediterranean weather of Provence and Italy...the sky was always blue. A single day in Paris and the windows of heaven and the fountains of the deep opened. We were wet to the bone, and I had not thought to bring an umbrella or an extra change of clothes. We would never have gotten dry if it wasn’t for the heat in the shops and the endless walking.

The next day was the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end. Monday...a sunny day with a few clouds...November 12, 2007 ... it was my 21st birthday.

I don’t like to make a big deal of my birthday. I prefer a quiet day so I can re-imagine the life I’ve lived so far and dream about the wonders ahead. I spent my birthday in the gardens of Versailles. In Christian jargon, we talk about being in “our secret, quiet place”. When I hear those words, this is the place that comes to my mind.

Later that evening, I dropped my mom off at the train to the airport and I took a train back to real life.

It’s been almost a month since then. Many things are ending. After a semester in France, I would soon have to say goodbye to the apartment I love so much; to the baguettes, the cheese and the grapes; and to the special group of people I would never have been able to survive France without. I’ll be spending Christmas in Switzerland, with old friends of my parents, and then I’ll be flying back to Vancouver a few hours before the end of this year and the beginning of another year.

So how do I measure this year?

Earlier this evening, I said goodbye to my cousin Nikki on a bus. I hadn’t seen her in five years but she’s taking French courses in Paris for a month so she came by to visit for the weekend. We spent some time wandering around the region. We even got to spend a day in Marseille. She has the same wanderlust that I have. I started thinking about all my travels and all the people who came and went.

Well, I realized that Jonathan Larson’s damn song was right. Measure your life in love. I’ve managed to squeeze the most out of the past 21 years. I can boast of more adventures than so many other people, but the only thing that made it all worth it was the people I spent it with.

The past few months have been a blast and a half; but until I met those four Americans, that Dane, those two Russians, that Brazilian, that Chinese guy...and not to mention those darn Canadians and that Brit, France was nothing but a lonely attic with no Internet access.

You guys taught me so much and I would never have managed France without you. In many languages, the word for hello and goodbye is the same...that’s because with goodbye, there always exists the possibility of a future hello. That is so effin’ cheesy, I can hardly believe I’m sober.

At the beginning of the semester, we talked about la comble de la misère…the bright side to poverty. There were days this semester when I was living in poverty…not eating, shivering underneath my blankets. Well, after many weeks, I realized that, for the past 4 months, you guys have been my comble de la misère. Oh la vache, je pleure.

Je suis plus que content de vous avoir connus, et je souhaîte qu'on puisse se revoir...encore et encore et encore.

Une Vague Irrésolu

2007-10-19T04:49:00.000-07:00

It’s been a little over a month since that first night I tossed and turned on my bed, unable to sleep. I was haunted by heavy shadows, frightened by unfamiliar noises, and my own mattress was a stranger. The excessive Provençal sun was not even warm enough to penetrate through the coldness of solitude.

The reality of it was I had no one. I was alone in a country in which the French I’d been learning for ten years was close to obsolete. Alone in a country of glaring eyes and pungent smells. Alone in a country in which you were more likely to find mouldy cheese and self-doubt than peanut butter and good customer service. Alone in a flat set high above the streets, higher than all the other tenants, away from anyone. Alone in my own personal bell tower.

I remember the first time I came home with the groceries. I remember my first sincere attempts at Provençal cuisine. I still remember the taste of the first ratatouille that I attempted as well as my first plate of moules frites. I wasn’t a bad cook. Sometimes, I was actually more than okay. But the fact of the matter was, I cooked recipes made for three people but I ate on my own...I shouldn’t be complaining; I can easily eat more than five pregnant women can.

So after being alone for several days, it was with apprehension that I showed up to the University of Avignon on September 11 to take a placement test with 60 other students (only five or six of whom were male) to gauge our knowledge of French. The results of the test would then allow us to be placed into groups corresponding to our level. A group would take the same courses and follow the same timetable throughout the semester.

The university was actually cool. Although it’s nowhere near as big as UBC (in all fairness, UBC is bigger than Avignon). There were

In Filipino time, late and punctual are synonymous, which makes me wonder if Filipinos are descended from the French. The French are horrible at punctuality, which is why the test didn’t start until 45 minutes after it was supposed to. Waiting around for the test to start, I would have to say I felt intimidated. In Canada, I was used to being top of the class in French...and it felt strange to hear so many French Foreign Language students speaking French better than I can. But once I started writing the test, I was in my element. After being grilled and roasted by UBC exams more than enough times, this was nothing. Surprisingly, I remembered more than I thought I’d remember, not having taken a French class for ten months. Mind you, I still didn’t get a lot of the crap. I actually didn’t want to do too well because I didn’t want to work as hard during the semester.

The day after, I was placed in a really small class of eight other students. The class was made up of Intermediate-Advanced students and not a day goes by when I don’t wonder how the hell I ended up in this class. I was sure I didn’t do that well on the exam. But it turned out that the class was pretty awesome. We were all on different levels. We all had different strengths. There were a lot of us who were really good at speaking and listening but not as much in writing, and vice versa. Personally, as someone who writes incessantly, I’m better at written French than oral French. We’re taking classes on grammar, culture, oral comprehension and creative writing (which, I think, is everyone’s favourite class).

We’re an interesting group of people...three American girls (later, four), two Russian girls, a Danish girl (who had to go back to Denmark), a Brazilian girl, a Chinese guy, and one Canadian. I personally think this is the funnest group ever. I think it’s definitely the smallest, but definitely the chattiest because a lot of the people in the group already speak French really well and it leads the rest of the class in. We take a lot of pictures in class and out.We already have a few inside jokes... I’ve gotten attached to these guys within the past few weeks and I’ll be really sad to leave at the end of the semester.

I also joined this student association that organizes parties, activities and trips for international students, exchange students and french students who wanna tag along with them. We have a soirée at a different bar every week…

And once a month, we have a trip to some part of France. In September, we went to the town of Cassis, a Mediterranean port known for its calanques...I’m not sure what they are in English because my dictionary fell off my bed and I’m not about to pick it up...but basically they’re sharp, white limestone inlets by the sea. We took a boat tour of the calanques and afterwards, we had a picnic on a large rock by the shore where we we had red wine and snacks. There was a little shelf above on a wall of rock and I spent some alone time there with the waves. I have a very close relationship with the sea. I miss it in Avignon. This was the first time I ever saw the Mediterranean. Just for me, the sea was my favourite shade of blue.

A funnier reason for why I stayed up on that shelf for a really long time was because I had to drink my red wine really quickly so I could have my hands free when I climbed the little cliff, so I go a little buzzed and couldn’t get down safely without slipping. Haha. Two versions of the same story, both of which are true. Haha. And then for the rest of the day we wandered around town.

This is a wicked candid shot that Caitlin took.

But a trip once a month is not enough for Gino Ruggiero, is it?

Within walking distance from Avignon is the nearby town of Villeneuve-Lez-Avignon. My first week in Avignon, I walked from my apartment to all the castles and towers in that town. It was actually pretty cool. I have a particular affinity for castles, having more than once attempted to study in a castle. In the sparsely-visited castles of Villeneuve, I spent a lot of time exploring the narrow passages and climbing stairless ramparts. The villages on the way to the castles are actually pretty cool too...

The French might just be incurably weird.

And every once in a while, I take a random trip to further away. Just last week I went with Caitlin, one of the only two other Canadians, on a random trip to Aix-en-Provence (we just hopped on the first train). But holy crap, it was stressful. We bought the ticket from a machine so it didn’t explain to us that after we got to Marseille, we would have to get off the train and take a bloody 45-minute bus to Aix. We literally ran to catch the bus and the only reason it stopped was because Caitlin tried to smash her way into the door. Aix-en-Provence was pretty cool though. There were a lot of fountains and a lot of little shops. Getting home was worse than getting there. We were supposed to take another shuttle to the TGV station but we were put into the wrong bus by the ticket lady. We ended up wandering around Marseille for hours. We were supposed to be home by seven, but we didn’t get home till after ten. We spent all our waiting time cursing the French. But I do not for one second regret that day.

But seeing France still wasn’t enough for me. After doing the same routine for about a month, I really badly needed to get out. So from Nîmes I got on a flight to London...
England was a breath of fresh air. You know that feeling you get when you go somewhere for the very first time? The feeling of freshness in everything, from the sights to the sounds to the smells. I just live for it...hence my URL.

My main purpose for visiting England was to see Kuya Joel, Ate Nats, Joey and my nephew Elliot whom I had never seen before. Tita Ma and Tito Jun were visiting there at the time so I thought it would be kinda nice to see all of them. They live up in Newcastle which meant that I would have to take the train there. My train didn’t leave until 7PM and I was in London by 3PM. I thought I would have lots of time to see London. WRONG.

I spent about two hours at Customs, thirty minutes trying to collect my tickets to and from Newcastle, another thirty minutes trying get out of the London Underground, and another thirty minutes trying to look for Platform 9 ¾ at King’s Cross Station. I daresay I found it. Haha. I spent my remaining 45 minutes walking along the river Thames, from St. Paul’s Cathedral to the Tower of London, with a camera that takes horrible pictures at night. When I talked to other people, I still caught myself trying to speak French. When cashiers asked me if I want a receipt, I kept answering Ouais, and I kept saying French words but conjugating them in English. For example, instead of saying “I bought it,” I’d say, “I achetéd it”. I was amused at myself.

At half-past-midnight, I got to Newcastle, took a taxi and got to Kuya Jo’s house in Killingworth. I texted Ana that, on the way there, I saw a cloud shaped like a Grim (big, black dog of bad omen) and I was, like, “Ooooh I’m about to meet the man who betrayed my parents to Lord Voldemort”. I was very sleepy and being in England put me in a very Harry Potter-y mood. Haha. Aren’t I always, though? Hahahaha. Honestly, don’t blame me; I’d just finished reading the final installment to the series for the fifth time and I had just started reading the series in French.

The morning after, I got to see Elliot for the first time. He’s only about six-months old and the first thing he did when he saw me was laugh at me...I just bet he was thinking, “What the heck is up with your hair, you fruit”. Haha. Elliot liked to look at me for some reason. And he was always smiling. Joey was still a little shy but was still very, very cute. Still looks like Ate Grace, though. Hehe.

Tita Ma and Tito Jun took me around the city centre that day. I would have to say I was pretty impressed. If I was to move permanently away from Vancouver, it might just be to Newcastle. It was a mixture of the old and the new. For example, there was a castle’s keep and monuments all over the city centre, but at the same time there were modern structures like the shapeless glass building at Gateshead and the just-plain-cool Millenium Bridge. The city centre was near the water, and it’s the one of the two features that that I could never live without.

The day after, I spent some time wandering about on my own. Everyone was sick at the time so I just took the Metro all over the place. My first stop was Wallsend, where the easternmost section of Hadrian’s Wall lies in ruins. It wasn’t much to look at, but I really appreciated it for its history, being an archaeology student.

My next stop was far more interesting. I was aching to be closer to the ocean so I got off at Tynemouth where I walked through a really charming little village by the sea. If I could pick one place to move to in Newcastle, it would be here. There were several small golden beaches. A particular highlight for me was Tynemouth Priory. It used to be Roman Catholic Church property but it was probably dissolved when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Ha, I can’t believe I remember that. I love Tudor history. The Priory is perched on a cliff by the sea and nothing is left of it but a chapel, a few stone walls, and a graveyard, enclosed within monumental castle walls. The priory was in ruins but the effect was nonetheless dramatic and nothing less than stunning.

I spent the rest of the day wandering around the seaside...lighthouses, beaches. I watched a flock of seagulls chasing a fishing boat...I’m honestly so easily amused.

The day after was different. I went with Kuya Jo and Ate Nats to a recreation centre and we played badminton with their friends, most of whom were Filipino. I managed to give myself minor injuries, which I have to say I’m getting more prone to doing. I lost half the skin on one toe trying to run after the shuttlecock, I fell over trying to jump too high, and I got a faceful of a swinging racket. What can I say? I like to hustle. Afterwards, we went to one of their friends’ house and had food all day, Filipino-style.

I had a tendency to wake up really early in England. France was one hour ahead, and I’d gotten accustomed to being rudely waked up every morning by the French garbage men and their noise. So I’d wake up at around 4AM every morning in Newcastle. It was good though; that way I could make the most out of my vacation. I also have to add that it was really nice not to eat food that I didn’t cook. It brings me back to what food is supposed to taste like. Speaking of food, the following day, we ate at an English pub. I had roast beef and yorkshire pudding which, I have to say,was actually awesome. Afterwards, we went to see a large monument called the Angel of the North. It’s a large metal statue, on top of a hill, of a man with outstretched metal wings.

On the fifth day, God said, “Let there be Scottish accents for the amusement of Gino...and the Scots said ‘Aye’”. That morning, I took a train to Edinburgh. Tita Ma was still sick so I went on my own. But it turned out to be a good thing because I would have exhausted them. As soon as I got out of the train station, I was impressed...so impressed that I just had to walk everywhere. I found it easier to navigate than France. True, I was still confused by people driving the other way and I freaked out every time I was in a car because I’d keep thinking that the people driving the other way were gonna smash into us. I made my way around pretty easily because all the sites and monuments were usually set on hilltops so they were pretty easy to distinguish.

The first thing I went to see was Edinburgh Castle, which the brochure said is the “jewel of Scotland’s crown”. It was set on a high hill so it was pretty easy to follow. It looked far away because it was on a hilltop but it actually wasn’t. Edinburgh was quite the opposite of Paris where the sites look so close but it turns out that the monuments are only look close because they’re big.

The castle itself was pretty awesome. Someone wanna do me a favour and count how many times I’ve said “pretty awesome” in this blog? The ramparts gave very good views of the city. There were pretty impressive sculptures all over the place. The castle's keep housed exhibits of Scotland’s crown jewels and the ambiance was monumental. The castles in the UK just seemed more well-maintained than a lot of the French châteaux which were often falling apart and smog-stained. Aside from well-maintained, Edinburgh Castle also made use of its many rooms by turning them into giftshops that just wouldn’t quit. So I bought a couple of things, you happy?

In Edinburgh, when I saw sites in the distance, I had a tendency to follow them. I also had a worse tendency to climb them. There was this monument that looked like a cement-based Doric temple that I climbed (which was nothing short of an accomplishment as the stereobate alone was taller than me).

The next thing I saw in the distance wasn’t man-made. It was a ramp-shaped geological structure whose proper name I will not speak because of post-Geography-12 trauma. Anyway, this ramp thing was called Arthur’s Seat. At first I didn’t know if people can climb it but I found a trail at the base so I followed it despite the BEWARE OF FALLING ROCKS sign. I miss climbing up things. There aren’t any mountains close to where I live right now, so I made the most out of this one.

I eventually found a sign that said we were allowed to climb Arthur’s Seat but we were to stick to the trail and not climb up the side...well, a little too late for that. There were times when I stuck to the trail and times when I climbed the cliff wall to get a better shot. At the halfway point, I scratched my name onto the rock just as a souvenir for Scotland.

I eventually made my way to the top side of the ramp and on the way, I saw a really old man who walked with a cane but still walked faster than everyone else, a crow that wouldn’t leave me alone, and a really friendly stray dog that’s living proof that Sirius Black didn’t die in the Department of Mysteries. Haha, I’m still in a Harry Potter-y mood. I really couldn’t help it; JK Rowling lives in Edinburgh, and it was with great self-control that I didn’t try to find her house to bring back something from her front porch as a souvenir.

At the highest point, I sat at the edge of Arthur’s Seat for about ten minutes enjoying a view of the city, feeling good about myself and thinking, “I wonder if Arthur ever took a dump on this seat 'coz I gotta go”. Haha. I DIDN’T by the way. I was also thinking as I looked over the edge, “This has got to be my mom’s worst nightmare...cool”. The cliff was a sheer drop. I eventually got down, taking the road-less-taken: a steep, grassy hill that didn’t involve me walking around the entire mountain again.

Everything else that day was a blur. I remember walking by Holyrood Palace where the Royal Family stayed when they were in Scotland. I remember all the quaint little shops and pubs...Edinburgh is just plain awesome. Here’s another place that I’d actually consider moving to. I eventually got tired and took the train home.

The next day, I woke up from the Cupboard Under the Stairs went into the kitchen and found a letter adressed to me saying: “Dear Mr Canlas, you have been accepted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...” Haha. Honestly, I went to Hogwarts that day.

Well, actually it was Alnwick Castle (pronounced Annick, or else)where they filmed Hogwarts scenes for the Harry Potter movies. It’s the home of the Duke of Northumbria, whom I am sincerely jealous of. The castle was so familiar to me because I’ve been watching it in movies since before I can remember. Two of my favourite movies were filmed here: Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves and Elizabeth. There were really large courtyards and high walls. I just loved the entire place. I wandered around, climbed the ramparts, and just enjoyed myself. From the ramparts there were great views of the countryside.

Just outside of Alnwick Castle was Alnwick Gardens. I thought it would be a pretty quick detour before I went back to the town but I was impressed and stayed longer than I should have. The first thing you saw when you entered was a large, terraced water fountain. There were tunnels made out of plants, there were rose gardens, bamboo gardens, and lots of really cool vegetation.

There was a section of the gardens called the Poison Garden, which was an enclosed garden of toxic plants which you couldn’t go into without a guide. Much to my enjoyment, one of the first questions asked by the tour guide was, “Are any of you Harry Potter fans?” Well, a lot of the plants he showed were plants that were used for potions and stuff in the books, like Mandrake, Wolfsbane, and Wormwood. There were some plants that were so poisonous that they had to be caged. One of the caged plants was Cannabis, from which you made Marijuana. I bet it’s nowhere near as potent as BC Bud. Haha. There were also tobacco flowers...apparently, picking them for your whole life is the same as smoking them for your whole life because the Nicotene goes into your skin. I wish that the French would just pick these instead of smoking them everywhere.

After walking around the garden, I went back to the castle for a last look before going back to Newcastle. When I got back, it was raining so I couldn’t see out of the bus too well so I missed my stop. I’m pretty good at wandering around in a city centre, but I’m bollocks at trying to find my way around the burbs. After an hour of wet-wandering around brick houses that all looked alike, I just called Kuya Jo for a ride.

The next day, I took a really early train to London and then flew back to France. I didn’t wanna leave yet. I was having too much fun. I’d also like to add a further thanks to Kuya Jo and Ate Nats for making my visit enjoyable, and also for the several weeks’ supply of tea and biscuits. I actually miss being called Tito Gino. Hehe.

And now I’m back in France. The weather’s getting colder but it feels warmer than it did the first night I slept on my bed, upon which I’m writing this blog. I’ve really made this place my home. It’s gonna be hard to leave, firstly, because there are so many people I might not see again, and secondly, my flat is now a comfortable mess that I don’t wanna clean up.

So what’s next for Gino?

Well, I’m still going on trips around France, some planned, some random. But in about a week and a half, my mom’s coming to visit me. We’re gonna go to Florence and Venice during my vacation, and then later we’re going to Geneva, so I’m excited. That will be next month’s blog, so watch out for that.

As for now, je me suis bien installé.

*The rest of the pictures are on Facebook.

France: La Première Semaine

2007-09-21T08:54:00.001-07:00

Day 1, August 31

At 1:20 PM, I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport carrying twice my weight in luggage. I made my way to the train station where after about 30 minutes of confusion, I was able to figure out how to buy a ticket to go to the centre of Paris. I eventually got there. I got off at Chatelet because it looked really close to Notre Dame which seemed to be a few blocks away from Bastille where my youth hostel was. How wrong I was.

Looing like an overburdened camel, I walked through the loooooonnnnnnnngg, narrow streets of Paris (after I found my out of Gringotts[1], i.e., the Metro). It honestly didn’t look that large in the map. It’s like they zoomed way out to fit the city into the map. I didn’t realize how big it was. But anyway, I got tired and sat down on a bench. I got into a conversation with an old French man about wine and then I asked him if he could show me how to catch a taxi and he did. I caught one, and it took me to the hostel I was supposed to go to. I got a bed, put down my luggage and hit the town.

Oh my, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore. The city was so much easier to appreciate when I wasn’t carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. Indescribable. I eventually found my way back to Chatelet where I walked towards Notre Dame, eating a ham and cheese baguette on my way (it sounds really simple but that was one of the best sandwiches I’ve ever tasted). I got to the Seine where I caught my first glimpse of Notre Dame on my left and the Eiffel Tower to my right. I had to stop. It was way too much for me at one time.

When I got to Notre Dame, my camera started cursing at me for the non-stop clicking. The architecture in Paris had so far been amazing but Notre Dame topped all of them. It was perfect down to the very last detail.

After Notre Dame, I decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. I thought “Hey, I can see it from here so I can probably just walk it.” Wrong again. It took about an hour or so. Mostly because I didn’t know what to do, and I was just following the Seine and whatever may distract me. I got there after a while. I passed some really awesome places . The Eiffel Tower was frickin’ huge. I thought it was smaller (which was why I thought it would be a shorter walk). At the time, it had gotten dark and the Eiffel tower was flashing lights like a pointy gay bar. I’m sure M. Eiffel never planned that.

Something really weird that I found was that there were guards patrolling the streets of Paris...carrying AK47s. That kinda freaked me out. Policemen are scarcely allowed to carry handguns in Canada, let alone assault weapons. There were so many tourists, some of whom were more annoying than others. It was really awesome to hear people switching back and forth from Italian, German, Spanish and French...but then I felt less special, coz that was my thing and I got depressed. Haha.

For some reason, I was getting the hang of it and was passing off as a French guy. It’s the curly hair, right Crish? Haha. But honestly, I thought I’d have trouble with French because I had lots of trouble speaking French during my stay in Quebec in ’04, but it was no problem at all. It was just coming naturally out of my mouth as if I’d been learning it for the past 10 years...oh no wait, I have. Haha. FINALLY, something I learned in school that’s actually applicable. Anyway, I displayed my cab-catching skills once more and got back to the hostel in less than 10 minutes. And thus ends my first day in Paris.

Day 2, September 1

I didn’t have much jet-lag. I was so tired from Day 1 that I just passed out immediately after I got back and woke up around 6. The first thing I needed to do was make sure I got a ticket to Avignon for , got out of there and found an electronics store where I bought a converter for my North American electronics. I went backto the hostel and found out that it was closed everyday from 10am till 3pm.

So I decided to catch a train and go to some place random...and by random I mean the Louvre. It was pretty easy to get there by metro.I didn’t really know where it was from the Metro though. The train dropped me off inside some mall. I looked around this place for a while until I bumped into something large and made of glass. It turned out to be a large inverted glass pyramid. And then I realized I was already in the Louvre. I got a ticket, got into the museum and had gratin and iced tea...and then I went to see the exhibits.
Holy God, it was amazing. The sheer scale of everything. I started off at the Near Eastern exhibits and saw a lot of the monuments from Mesopotamia...my first thought was “Wow, I hate every single one of you statues. I’ve written some pretty exhausting essays because of you.” And then I got out of there and went to the Egyptian exhibits and totally pissed my pants. Then I got to the Greek and Roman exhibits...The statues that I’ve known since I was 8 were standing there bold as brass...in this case, marble and bronze.

I got to this one room with an enormous amount of people and then I saw why. Surrounded by a throng of flashing cameras was the Venus de Milo. It was taller than I expected. I got a couple of shots before I left the increasingly crowded room and then I made my way to another famous resident of the Louvre: the Mona Lisa. There was a long line up but I eventually got to it. I thought, “Hmmm, over-rated. Moving on.” I saw Da Vinci's many paintings and thought that Dan Brown is a crackpot after every I saw every single one of them. Fun fact: the first time I ever did #2 in France was in a bathroom adjacent to the Venus de Milo and a floor below the Mona Lisa.

After the Louvre, I decided to walk through the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. I thought it was gonna be another quick walk...but wrong again, it was as long as Broadway to UBC. The Arc was bloody humongous. I got acosted by about a hundred gypsies on my way away. They’re really annoying thieves.

Then I got a ticket to the Cars Rouges which are like red tourist buses that take you around the sites of Paris. It was kinda cool. I got off in front of the Paris opera, around which time my camera passed out on me. I walked to Montmarte and saw the Moulin Rouge which looked kinda ‘meh’. Montmarte as very Bohemian. I found a small restaurant and I had a nice poulet niçoise with red wine in a walled garden. You could hear a man singing Italian opera from the other side of the wall. It was really pleasant. There was also a large cathedral called the Sacré Cœur in Montmarte and that was quite beautiful because it was high on a hill and it had a very good view of Paris. It also glowed at night.

After being conned out of 5€ by a man from Guinea, I got back to the Metro which I took back
to the Bastille and then my hostel. I took a shower and passed out.

Day 3, September 2

I woke up on Sunday morning, and didn’t know where I was gonna go that day. At this point I’d already seen the most famous sites of Paris, but now I wanted to go deeper. As it was Sunday, I thought it would be really appropriate to go to church...so I went to mass in Notre Dame. It was quite awesome inside as it was on the outside. It was very dark though. There was a solemn, silent atmosphere even though there were hundreds of tourists there with me. It was quite the experience.

And wanting to save on metro fare, I walked to the Eiffel Tower again. This time I went up the Eiffel Tower. I paid less than 3€ and that got up to some of the best views of all of Paris.

I eventually found my way to the metro, looking at the pictures on my map, trying to decide what I should see next. I was trying to go to Château de Vincennes but went the wrong way. I ended up outside of Paris, near the Palace of Versailes where the French royalty lived. After a few hours of maneuvering my way around metro, I found my way out to Versailles (la ville propre). I got lost for an hour or so AGAIN but I eventually got to the palace. The palace itself was already closed because it was getting late but the gardens were still open so I decided to take a walk around.

I thought it was gonna be a nice brisk walk around a royal garden but holy crap, I swear the gardens were bigger than UBC campus, and I’ve taken wayyyy too many walks around UBC compared to the average UBC student. But it was surreal. It was like walking into a fairy tale. There were statues made of bronze, gold and marble…there were fountains and tall hedges that formed sorts of mazes…and canals where people could ride with little white rowboats. It got even more surreal when I got to the domain of Marie Antoinette. There were little gardens, and fountains and some really amazing architecture. There was a building called the Grand Trianon which was a sort of pillared building made of pink marble and it was just wonderful. This must have cost the French people a lot of money. No wonder they cut off Marie Antoinette’s head.
And back again to the hostel where I collapsed on my bed.

Day 4, September 3

After packing all my things and eating breakfast, I went back to Gare de Lyon to go to Avignon. I took the the TGV (high-speed train; Train à Grande Vitesse) which was more comfortable than the regular metro. We passed by some lovely countryside but the train literally passed through several towns in the blink of an eye so it was a bit hard to enjoy. I took some videos along the way but I still preferred to read Harry Potter...third time reading the 7th book. It only took 2.5 hours to get to Avignon...I actually wished it was longer. I’m used to long journeys. 2.5 hours won’t get you to UBC and back from Surrey.

I caught a cab to my hostel (which was infinitely nicer than the hostel in Paris; nicer facilities, great food, good location, nicer staff and just as cheap). I dropped off my luggage and took a walk to the historic centre of Avignon (to Filipinos, that’s like our Intramuros in Manila, except nicer). It was really amazing. There were palaces and cathedrals cut from the limestone. There were narrow streets with really old stone houses. From the high places of the city, you could see castles in the distance. There were towers and secret passageways...it’s like I died and went to Hogwarts.

After the accidental sight-seeing ( I was supposed to go straight to my university to get my registration going but I got lost AGAIN), I got to the little campus on the east wall of town. I found my way to the the the International Services office, talked to my coordinator and got information on finding housing in Avignon. I was really daunted by the fact that I had to go around this city looking for a place to live. I was also given a computer password so that I could use the computers on campus...

As fate would have it, the password didn’t work so I went back and asked what was wrong with it. I was sent to a different computer lab with a girl named Amélie and she helped me fix it. As we were talking, I told her that I was looking for a place to stay in Avignon...and she just happened to be leasing her apartment because she was moving with her boyfriend Sergio to Mexico. I went with her and Sergio to the apartment after and the place was quite amazing. It was an attic room, 40m², fully furnished with a shower a bathroom and it was somewhat prism-shaped. It costs 370€ a month plus charges. That’s like finding an apartment in Downtown Vancouver for less than $400. I told them I’d take it.

The next four days before I moved into my apartment passed like a blur. The plot centres around the people I met at the youth hostel across the river from Avignon. You will never meet more interesting characters anywhere other than at a youth hostel. Many faces flash past my mind...some more clearly than the others. I made many important contacts from all over the world. It’s weird how close you can get with people in such a short period of time. There were many long conversations at the café about every topic you can possibly imagine. They ranged from pleasant reminiscences of our own countries to passionate outbursts on politics to drunken ramblings about the inadequacies of the French. There were many adventures into the city, private (and sometimes excessive) wine-tastings and impromptu tae-kwondo lessons in our balconies, and noise-making waaaaaay after midnight (much to the annoyance of the one guest out of one hundred who was actually asleep).

Much to my enjoyment, our conversations never seemed to be able to stay in one language. In one conversation we would often switch back and forth from French and English, which was often re-explained by someone in German and Dutch. I even had a lot of opportuniy to get my Greek on. This made me feel special because I met foreigners that have lived and worked in Greece for years and still can’t speak Greek. I’m getting job offers in Mykonos (which means that I might be leaving again not long after I come back). But anyway, it was always memorable whenever we clinked our wine glasses and toasted in half a dozen languages.

On the day I left, things started to quiet down. It was time for many of the people I met to get going and it was also for me. That afternoon I lugged my 200lbs worth of luggage across the river Rhone, through the city walls, navigate around the winding streets of the city, survive the ceaseless winds of the Mistral, and make my way up a narrow, dilapidated staircase which led to my apartment.

Sergio hadn’t completely moved out yet but he was letting me stay for the night so I wouldn’t have to keep paying for the hostel. He even took me to a party for the international and exchange students of the university at a nice little resto-bar where I met two other Canadians.
The following night, the apartment was completely and solely mine. Sprawled out on my bed that night, I had begun the process of making this place my home.

______________________

[1] Gringotts is the Wizarding bank in Harry Potter. It’s deep underground and it’s extensive. I’m using it here as a comparison to the Paris Metro.

Wanderlust

2007-08-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Maybe I was weaned early from breast milk. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s all those books I read about ‘elsewhere’. Maybe I was born when the constellation Scorpius was under the direct influence of Mercury. Maybe I’m the incarnation of a Byronic poem. Or maybe I’m a descendant of Cain and share his curse…

“You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

I feel like I inherited a part of Cain’s disposition. I’m never content to stay where I am. I’m always on the wrong continent, no matter what continent I’m in. As soon as I start to get comfortable in one place, I become obsessed with going to another. If this was a curse, give me more of it!

Constantly and consistently, I seek out new opportunities to get out into the world…it’s like I have this greedy lust to travel.

Even when I’m at home, I feel the urge to go…beyond. I was leaving class at UBC one day, and instead of going to the bus loop to go home, I ended up walking to Wreck Beach during a cold day (i.e., no nude people). I then followed the shoreline until I was out of Point Grey. After five hours of rock, sand and owwies, I found myself in Granville Island where I got hungry, ate-all-I-can, and then finally took the bus home. I’m honestly traveling even when I’m not traveling.

I wanted to give you a glimpse of the amazing chaos that goes on in my head everyday. It’s basically a long list of my future adventures…but I don’t wanna bore anyone so I’m giving you pictures pictures and more pictures.

I wanna trek the Himalayas and climb Mt. Everest. It’s the tallest mountain. How can I not? Take into account that the region is very beautiful. Nepal…Bhutan…

It always amazes me how humans, being physically disadvantaged compared to other animals in many ways, are able to survive the most extreme environments...

I want to trek the Sahara desert from Egypt up to Morocco once while travelling with a camel caravan of nomadic tribes such as the Bedouin or the Tuareg...

I also want to explore the exact antithesis of one of the Sahara...the Arctic and the Antarctic. Ice diving would be niiiice...

For my next adventure, I want to follow the Amazon jungle, through the Andes and into Peru. I want my last stop to be Machu Picchu.

...Then I have this weird kinda adventure in my head...You know how some people like to take cruises? I want to circumnavigate the world on a ship with blue sails. I want to go scuba diving in every ocean. I wanna dive with so many animals...dolphins, which are one of my two favourite animals...whale sharks, the most enigmatic fish in the world...blue whales, before they become extinct...

Alright, I just finished writing an Oceanography essay and I have a lot of pictures that were just going to waste so here they are.

Those are just a few of the things I wanna accomplish before I die. I refuse to die until I’ve done all of those things…actually, I refuse to die until I’ve done all but one of those things, and then during the last one, I’m allowed to die. Haha.

But those are just my short-term adventures (by short-term I mean less than a year). I wanna move around the world…a lot. I wanna keep Vancouver as my permanent residence because it's just wonderful here.

Anyway, here are the top five places I wanna live in.

1) Greece - This country is perhaps the most deeply rooted in my childhood. When I was around seven or eight, a book called Classical Greece fell of my dad’s shelf and I started reading it and almost 12 years later, I'm speaking Greek and majoring in Archaeology. I always wanted to see the Greek light which apparently falls more beautifully in Greece than in other places. It’s a clash between the east and the west, giving it a distinct flavour. It’s a colliding point between the solemn hum of the decaying past, and the tumultuous din of modern nightspots. The terrain is rugged and just plain beautiful but it’s even more amazing how human civilization just dealt with it…

2) Austria - When I was in grade 1, I saw the Sound of Music and since then I’ve been obsessed with at least one musical at any given time. Anyway, the Sound of Music was filmed in Salzburg, which is an absolutely gorgeous city near the Alps. And as mentioned in previous blogs, I love mountains. Salzburg is 300 km away from Vienna. Also another gorgeous city, with a very strong artistic history. I also wanna get my PhD at the University of Vienna because most of the research material I find for my specialization seems to come from there. It’s amazing where childhood experiences lead.

3) Tanzania - I’m very attracted to the prospect of living in Africa and not just for a short visit. Tanzania, in particular, has the most political stability in the immediate region—with a growing economy—so it seems like the best choice. The sheer natural beauty is unsurpassed…Mt. Kilimanjaro (I’m obviously gonna climb it), the Great Rift Valley (which may be where humans first appeared), the Savannah. Maybe I'll finally get to meet real lions in the wild (lions are my other favourite animal)

4) Australia - It’s got kangaroos and koalas! What more could you want? Haha. Australia’s got a very laid-back outdoor lifestyle. It’s a very unique continent, having detached from the other continents 50 million years ago. Everything, from the terrain to the flora and fauna and even the people, is different.

5) France - Who wouldn't want to? It's frickin' beautiful! The landscape, the architecture, the food...everyone knows how much I like food. France has this sort of subtle beauty, like the lavender fields in Provence, and at the same time it has this stark magnificence, like Mont Blanc the highest mountain in Europe.

Everything I listed will come true...it's already started, 'coz I'm living in France until January. BOO YAH!

K, so here's the deal. I'm living in Avignon in Provence (Southern France) to take courses à l'Université d'Avignon...I guess taking 10 years of French actually did pay off. Anyway, Avignon is awesome. It's a Gothic citadel where the Popes used to live (when they were having a little tiff in Rome 1309-1377). It's absolutely wicked. They've got this gi-normous performing arts festival every July, and the location is just perfect. So here it is...

So here's Avignon from the Rhone river, facing the famous bridge, the Pont d'Avignon...

Here's the entrance to the Palace of the Popes...

...and here's a view from within the city streets.

Exciting, ain't it? That's one off the list...and my whole life left to go.

The Next Ten Years...

2007-02-01T20:21:00.000-08:00

Another year. 2006 ended with my teenage years. It was fun...much better than most people’s experience of adolescence, with minimal levels of angst. I love my life. I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions but I wanted to begin 2007 with a list of ambitions for the next ten years. My New Decade’s Resolve.

Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

Francis of Assisi

The word “impossible” is not in my vocabulary. I believe I can do everything I want to do and learn everything I want to learn. My only limits are those I choose to set for myself. This is the decade when I achieve the impossible.

THIS IS THE DECADE I DEFY GRAVITY.

1 When I was a little kid, about grade 3 or 4, I said I wanted to learn 10 languages by the time I was 20. Back then, I didn’t know how I was gonna do it. I always thought it was something I’d have to take classes for. When I was 16 years old (grade 10), I discovered I could do it ALL ON MY OWN. I wanna take up my childhood ambition and raise the bar. By the time I’m 30, I want to speak 20 languages...14 more to go. In no particular order I want to learn Italian, German, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Syriac-Aramaic, Persian, Russian, Akkadian, Romanian, Japanese, Hebrew, Indonesian, Arabic, Swahili, Turkish, Indonesian, Swedish and Icelandic...there’s a lot more, but I have more paragraphs to write.

La conoscienza di tutto è possibile.

Leonardo da Vinci

2 There really is no point in speaking all 6,900 known languages if I’m just gonna speak them here in Vancouver. I want to know the world intimately. I’m gonna trek the Sahara, climb Mt. Everest, and I’m gonna circumnavigate the world on land and sea, just like Ferdinand Magellan...except that I’m not gonna get killed by Filipinos halfway through my voyage. I’m gonna cruise Alaska, ski across the Alps, climb the tallest mountain on every continent, retrace the migration routes of my ancestors, swim with whales, see Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and the Pyramids... I’m gonna live in Paris, London, Cairo, Salzburg, Timbuktu, Sydney, New York, Québec Ville, Rome...and, to fulfill my dreams since I was 9, I’m going to climb Mt. Olympus, prophesy in Delphi, pray in Meteora, and watch the sunset in Santorini. Screw this; this is taking too long. This is gonna be my next blog.

Life is a daring adventure or nothing.

Helen Keller

3 This is the decade when I lose all fear. I grew up afraid of heights. I had problems taking the first step onto an escalator, I couldn’t open my eyes on roller coasters, and I was scared to try a lot more. Action cures fear. On my trip to Québec, I began to lose this inhibition. On a daytrip to La Ronde in Montréal, I tried every roller coaster and free-fall waterslide. My fear was replaced by serious thrill issues. Two years after, I did it again, this time in Canada’s Wonderland in Toronto. I went on every waterslide, rollercoaster, and even that ride that drops you 500 feet from the air. That same summer, I jumped off of a 50-ft cliff into a river (see The Bookman blog). And I’m not gonna stop there. I’m gonna go hang-gliding, parasailing, skydiving and bungee jumping. I am gonna learn how to surf, and I am gonna get really good at snowboarding...I may even try ski-jumping...we’ll see. I am no longer going to make decisions based on fear.

You can't test courage cautiously.

Anne Dillard

4 Weaknesses are just talents I haven't yet discovered. I’m gonna become good at things I was never good at. Math is the major thorn in my flesh. In school, I was never brilliant at sports. It wasn’t because of a lack of ability, but due to a failure to see what I was doing wrong...and in all honesty, none of my teachers have ever taken the time to teach me personally. But recently I’ve been discovering that with personal attention from people I respect, it is possible for me to learn. So this decade, I am going to take up water polo, tennis, jai alai, volleyball, skateboarding, archery, competitive horseback riding and the extreme sports I have previously listed. Humans beings are vessels of unlimited potential. It’s what separates us from the animals and I am going to exploit it to its fullest.

Never be satisfied with what you achieve, because it all pales in comparison with what you are capable of doing in the future.

Rabbi Nochem Kaplan

5 I’m sincerely hoping that being a grad student doesn’t mean I have to live in poverty until I get my PhD…I wanna indulge myself in material dreams as well. It’s funny how the first thing that pops into my head is a red-hot convertible. The other thing is a really, really sexy motorcycle (black with veins of blue). Those two are within my five-year plan. One of my long-term ones is to get a really sick penthouse apartment in Vancouver, but I’d settle for a jazzy-looking boho flat. Within this current year, I wanna get snowboarding equipment, scuba-diving equipment, a surf board, and a hot tattoo on my right shoulder blade. There, I got those out of my chest.

Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.

John Updike

6 Musically, I wanna accomplish more than I foresee is possible. I want to be able to belt a high A without flinching. I don’t want to be a good singer…I wanna be a good singer. If you’re Broadway savvy, think of Darius de Haas’s “Lost in the Wilderness" in Children of Eden, Shoshana Bean’s end note in “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, Lea Salonga’s “On My Own,” Colm Wilkinson in “Valjean's Soliloquy” and Philip Quast’s “Javert’s Suicide” in Les Miz. Put them all together and you’ve got an idea of how powerful my voice has to be. On top of that, I wanna kick ass playing piano…maybe learn more technicals. And I swore a pact with one of my Rent-head friends that we’re gonna take a year or two off in between degrees to make it on Broadway...and I am not backing out on this one. Next stop: Fiyero.

Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission.
Neil Kendall

7 I want to experience the minutest details of life to its fullest. What I’ve previously described are things that send blood rushing to the head...I want to enjoy the opposite. You know that feeling when you first go somewhere you’ve never been to before? That sense of awe and wonder? If you’ve ever gone on vacation, moved to a new house, or flown across the ocean, you know what I mean. Everything is new. Everything is unexplored. Everything in your eyes is fresh. I want to live life as if a different light is shining every day.

Upon touching sand, may it turn to gold.
Greek Proverb

When I think of the collective magnitude of everything I'm about to do, it sometimes seems daunting. But really, this is all gonna be a piece of cake. About half of this list are clubs at UBC, and I've got a good 8 years left in school. Other people have accomplished these. What separates me from them? NOTHING. Edmund Hillary, Octavian, Joanne Rowling...they all started from nothing, but they weren't stupid enough to do nothing and therefore remain nothing.

Do, or do not.There is no try.

Yoda

This is the official unveiling of the next 10 years of my life.

And so these shall be.

These are no longer just dreams.

Dreamtime has ended.

Dreams,
Goodbye.

2 Decades of Dreams...

2007-01-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

“When I grow up I want to be a scientist,” I spoke into the microphone. I was six and I had just finished my first year of school. I was graduating from Casa (kindergarten in my elementary school) in front of hundreds of people in the Philippine Heart Center auditorium. They lined us all up on stage and we each had to tell the audience what we wanted to become when we grew up. At this point in my life I wanted to be a scientist. I look back at that part of my life and I almost die laughing because anyone who knows me will say that I’m the last person who’ll ever make it in Sciences. Then I started remembering everything that I wanted to become...

I’ve pretty much wanted to become everything ... paleontologist ... chemist ... astronaut ... astronomer ... zoologist ... veterinarian ... doctor ... actor ... lawyer ... teacher ... writer ... pirate ... wizard ... hunter-gatherer ... warrior ... Greek god ... singing Austrian nun (haha) ... Peter Pan ... Superman ... Simba ...

By grade 9, I was pretty much sure the first half of this list wouldn’t work because I found Sciences boring (below the visible level). And now that I think about it I wanted to be a dinosaur much more than someone who studies dinosaurs. The lawyer thing was a phase...so was the doctor thing. They were mostly influenced by TV shows and movies. A lot of the other ones were weird childhood ones. I’m pretty sure I can’t be a superhero, because I would never be able to keep a secret identity secret...and if my mom found out, she’d probably put it on her blog. Haha. Acting and writing are good hobbies, but I’m a bit too ambitious to make it the sole focus of my life, so I just do those on my own time.

By grade 10, I wanted to become an English Professor. English was my best subject. Back then, I was going through my book-worm phase...I read everything and I started writing secretly...that changed in a few years. Right now, I read Harry Potter more than anything else, and I don’t read anything else as much anymore, although I still write...evidently. I graduated from highschool intending to become an English Major.

Then I got to UBC...it turned out I liked everything except English, which is now incredibly boring for me. By the first half of first-year I wanted to major in Religious Studies because the courses were so much fun...keeping in mind that I still wanted to be a professor, so any discipline I choose was to lead to at least 10 years of study.

So the question remains...what the hell do I wanna do now?

Well, after considering my strengths and weaknesses, interests and dislikes, hobbies and favourite classes, I have decided that I really wanna be an Archaeologist.

So what’s Archaeology about? I’ll tell you what it’s NOT about: Dinosaurs. Archaeology basically studies material human past. It doesn’t study ancient writings, aliens, or try to find Atlantis. A central method used in Archaeology is excavation, ie. digging. That sounds boring, but Archaeology covers everywhere that humans have ever been. So it can mean going deep into a forest, trekking a desert, scuba diving to a sunken village, or climbing to the peak of a mountain. Archaeology covers a lot of different fields: Classics (Greek and Roman stuff), Biblical Studies (Ancient Jewish-Christian stuff), Zooarchaeology (stuff about animals we used to eat and animals who used to eat us), Paleoethnobotany (stuff about plants we used to eat or feed to animals we used to eat), Acoustics (sound and music stuff), and Genetics (stuff about the birds and the bees). Archaeology is not in Sciences so I’m safe...it does use some scientific methods but it’s still very interpretive.

I plan to be a professor in Archaeology. So, apart from studying about “who are we?” and “where do we come from?” and “why is that guy picking his nose while I’m trying to blog?”, I also get to teach university students and be called Doctor. And sidenote: I don’t want to be called Dr. Canlas cause that just sounds ewww, so I decided I wanna be called Dr G. Haha.

So how am I gonna do this? What’s gonna happen? Well, I’m gonna major in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at UBC...probably 5 years, although 4 years would also be fun. In order to get my Master’s degree, I have to be able to speak French, Italian and/or German and relevant ancient languages. I need field experience...so I’m probably gonna be volunteering on an archaeological dig this summer in the Interior of BC with one of my archaeology profs, and then I have to find a way to work on excavations in the Mediterranean before getting my Master’s. I also have to get pretty high marks, and kiss lots of butt. I also get to learn a whack-load of things like forensics, architecture and art history. After my Master’s I need to get my PhD, which I don’t wanna do at UBC. I’m looking at several schools in Europe, the top of my list being in Vienna, London, Paris and Athens (my whole language thing is really coming in handy now).

When I become a prof, I’m gonna be working at a university during the Winter Sessions and doing fieldwork during the Summer Sessions. I haven’t given a lot of thought to where I wanna work...but I’ve really fallen in love with Vancouver the past few years and I’ve been thinking of working for UBC.

So I think this path is perfect for me. I get to put all my interests and talents to good use. I’m not gonna be confined to sedentary work; I’ll be travelling and exploring, which will be fun because I have a talent for turning even the most normal bike rides into an adventure. I get to learn even more languages and put them to use. I get to endlessly feed my curiosity. I get to influence thousands of students...I can even influence what the world knows and thinks. I get to jump on controversies. I get to help answer why we are the way we are...

I really don't know what's gonna happen...but whatever it is, I'm excited.

Over the mountains and the sea...

2006-09-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to come up with something to blog about after my 5-month detour-from-life in Ontario and my random excursion to California, but it's been feeling like I've had all the creativity sucked out of me. Oh yah, since I forgot to tell more than half my friends where I was going or what I was doing, I might as well re-cap a little.

I was working in Ontario (East York, Toronto for the most part) doing sales stuff since May. I left Vancouver in April, and then I carpooled with my org to Nashville, Tennessee where we had Sales School for a few days and then carpooled it up to Ontario. I worked in Toronto from May till August, and then I checked-out in Nashville...but instead of going home I got a ride with someone to Southern California to visit Charlie...and then I Greyhounded it to Seattle to stay with my family there for a few days, and then my parents took me back to Surrey. So overall, I passed through 23 states. The states shaded blue are those I've been in.

Two years prior, I went to Québec for and exchange trip. I went by train to Montréal and then to Drummondville. I passed through every single province in Western Canada...which unfortunately included the Prairies. VIA Rail Canada: Le façon humaine de voyager! Subtle advertising. haha. I stayed in Victoriaville with a host family for six weeks and then took the train back. Have fun with another diagram. I've been to all the reddish orange provinces:

I'm no good at math and I'm probably way off but I think I've been to a quarter of North America now...without parental supervision.

After all my travels, I learned a couple of things:
a) Kansas City is the capital of Missouri, not Kansas
b) ALL racial stereotypes are true
c) BC is the most beautiful place in ALL of North America

I decided to make Point C the topic of my blog...so yes, the past five minutes of your life have been wasted by my prologue. haha.

British Columbians, don't take your license plates for granted. It says "Beautiful British Columbia" for a reason; it's not just a lack of creativity on ICBC's part (which it probably was). Everything from climate to culture to scenery is superior to the rest of North America.

BC has two features that I honestly have problems living without: the mountains and the sea.

Anyone who's known me since childhood can say that I have a strong affinity with the water. I've loved swimming since before I can remember. I was always more confident in water than anywhere else. I was always proud of being described as matapang sa tubig even when adults meant it in a reprimanding way (I would be a much lesser person today if I actually listened to them). I didn't care how deep the water was. I always thought "If I can float in shallow water, then how is deep water any different? There's more risk but shouldn't it be easier to float?" (you'll have to picture me saying that in a Filipino accent). That mentality stayed with me and continues to influence many of the decisions I make now. A lot of my fondest memories happened either in clubhouse pools or seas, stretching from Boracay to Monterey.

Living away from the water killed me slowly everyday this summer. I grew crazier everyday. How do they live in the Central US? No wonder they vote Republican. BURN! haha. I also think that living near the Pacific produces a laid-back attitude. I saw this trend from Vancouver to Seattle to LA. People were always bitchier the farther east you went. I bike a lot everywhere but nobody in Vancouver ever hit me with a pick-up truck, unlike in Toronto (long story, don't ask).

The Pacific Ocean allows us to have the best climate in ALL of North America. I worked through 50°C weather with about three days of torrential rain in Toronto. It rains a lot in Vancouver but it's mostly mild rain and it keeps the humidity down. And we have comfortably warm winters that can be fixed with a few sweaters. And of course, the water makes everything all pretty.

I also wonder how people can live without mountains? I remember first entering the Prairies in 2004 and I was basically shocked at the absence of sharp peaks in the horizon. This summer, I missed having a ring of mountains around me. In Toronto I would bike east in the morning which meant that the sun would be attempting to take out my eyes. I never realized that the Coast mountains were saving me money on optometrical expenses...oh no wait, they don't, cause I read in the dark and stare at the sun. haha.

I grew up with mountains around me. When I lived in the Philippines, Antipolo was always in the distance, Mount Pinatubo literally blew up when I was 5, and my garbage went to Smokey Mountain every week de facto. I spent every summer with my cousins who lived in the mountains in Batangas, to get away from my progenitors...which naturally meant I had fun. Consequentially, mountains always meant freedom to me. I remember when my plane was landing in Vancouver and I first saw snow-peaked mountains...I was frickin' excited. I was 11 at the time and I had no reason to come to Canada except for the snow. I wasn't thinking about free public education or universal healthcare, but I always fantasized about snow.

The Mountains in BC did not and do not disappoint. I remember making the return trip home from Québec and as we were passing into the Rockies, there were some Torontonians that started crying out of joy. It was flippin' hilarious but at the same time it gave me a sense of pride. "Haha, my province is better than yours!" Sometimes when I'm riding the skytrain to UBC in the morning, I just stare dreamily at the mountains... At night all you can see of the mountains are dark outlines and the electric lights that look like stars come down to rest. I've invented some pretty interesting worlds out of those lights.

The mountains are capped with snow for most of the year and it should stay that way. I've done some pretty exciting things this year. I jumped off of a 50-foot cliff, I watched a green girl fly while belting a high, riffing E note, I got into Richard Nixon's personal helicopter...but the highlight of my year was still snowboarding on Grouse Mountain in March. I still dream about it every now and then...sigh...the view is always beautiful up there...(P.S. Thanks Warren). And apparently Vancouver has strict height restrictions for buildings to allow free viewing of the mountains...nice.

I love Photoshop...you know what else I love? Vancouver. I think it should be objectively known as the most beautiful city in North America...Québec City is a very close contender, except that the natural beauty surrounding Vancouver is...more beautiful. haha. Unlike most big cities Vancouver is actually...clean. Even if it isn't, at least it looks clean. There's always something to do, and even if there isn't you can always go exploring and just take pictures of everything. Wikipedia describes Vancouver as having one of the liveliest arts and culture scenes in North America. It's true. Los Angeles didn't even compare and I was too busy hating Torontonians to care about the arts scene. Vancouver has much nicer people too. People smile a lot and everyone's friendly. And the public transit is awesome; you can get anywhere without driving...I generally say that as my excuse for the 4 years of procrastinating on getting my driver's license. Ewww I'm turning 20.

And why else does BC rock? Because UBC is in it. UBC has the most beautiful campus ever. I've been to a lot of campuses throughout North America and no other campus is as perfect. UBC has a very laid-back culture with an arts scene that matches Vancouver. It's weird how you'd be walking down Main Mall and you'd see people walking, then you'd see people biking, and skateboarding...and on occasion you'll see people in large unicycles that look almost fictional. My profs are the most eccentric people I have ever met. The architecture ranges from vine-draped to weird (eg. neon-green glass buildings that imitate the shape of a book). A lot of the movies you've watched were filmed in UBC. Professor Xavier's house is the Chemistry building. Yah that's right, this is where they filmed all three X-Men movies. Haha. And we also have one of the largest clothing-optional (ie. nude) beaches in the world. Wreck Beach is awesome except all the naked people are old and ugly, with traumatising consequences for Crishna, and hilarious reactions from me and Ana. Other than that, we have the highest concentration of Ph.D professors in North America. We're the second-largest campus in Canada and our campus is obviously more beautiful than the University of Toronto's. And in comparison to UBC, SFU feels like a large, grey mental institution. UBC is just way too perfect. I'm in Main Library right now and I'm staring out the window watching the trees around the clocktower change colour. The sun is setting and there's a flash of sunlight streaming through the mountains. God, this place is positively poetic. K. Long story short, I love this place. And I'm glad to be back...

I'll probably be bored again by next summer and I'll find myself in Egypt or New York or Salzburg or Provence...we'll see. I always end up somewhere.

The Bookman

2006-07-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

So...here's what I have for now...There will be more...I'll add as time goes...

My Awesome Room

2006-04-23T20:56:00.000-07:00

This will be my last blog before I leave for the summer. This is gonna be about my bedroom! Last year I impulsively started a painting project, using my bedroom walls as my canvas, and almost a year later, I finally finished...more or less...and these pictures are the finished product.

So...

I will give you a guided tour of the production from around the half-way point of my work to the finish, and I will give detailed explanations of anything of interest.

...enjoy.

Alors...je commence.
Let me start by giving a brief introduction to my room.
When we moved to this house 3 years ago, I got the huge basement room, which I was sharing with Mickey at the time. The walls were totally white and completely bland. My room would have been the most boring place in the world...except that I had (and still have) the coolest loft bed, lots of space, a couch, and a keyboard (which is honestly my best friend).

The room became solely mine a year and a half ago...and I was left with four boring white walls with nothing on them. It was like living in a box made out of white paper. There was nothing that I could stick onto the walls to make them more interesting. ...so one day while I had a pencil in my hand, I drew impulsively on the largest empty space on one of my walls. I didn't know what I was doing or what I wanted to do, but once the pencil had touched the plaster, there was no turning back.
...

I unknowingly started a long-term project in the Spring Break of 2005. The first image I drew was the leaping bull from the 5,000 year-old "Toreador" fresco from Minoa. I finished outlining it in pencil in about an hour. Then I added the bull-jumpers, and they took about two hours each.
I was exhausted. The people in the drawings are pretty much life-size. Most of them are taller than me. I was on a ladder for half the time. And due to my limited attention span, I just left the pencil outline of the fresco on my wall...for a very long time.

...until one day...
I found another Minoan fresco that I liked and I drew it on another wall. They were of dolphins, and the whole thing just took about an hour and a half to pencil in. I was really stoked and I started to want to see it in colour. At this point I was just starting to love what I can do...I had a few more empty walls and the possibilities were endless. So my mom bought me little tubes of paint one day and I started painting...and for a few days, I just couldn't stop...

And for a while, I didn't stop. I found more Minoan paintings while doing research and I just really liked them so I kept putting them up on my wall. On this wall I drew a procession of people (each of whom were from different Minoan frescoes). The one furthest left is from a fresco called "Prince of the Lilies," the second one is a water-bearer, and the furthest one is a picture of priestess-musicians. I couldn't stop.

And the last one was the single-most complicated, but definitely the most detailed and most hypnotic. It's about 6 feet tall and the hair alone took several days to draw. I drew this Mycenean woman about 6 months after I drew the bull-riders. After I finished drawing this, I didn't wanna paint it because of the sheer size and detail...most of which was located where it was too high for me to reach. When I finally did start painting it, I painted it a yucky green colour (it didn't look yucky in the bottle), and I was so unhappy with it so I painted over it in red. The hair was a pain to paint.
So I pretty much got so lazy after this one that I didn't touch a paintbrush for a while...and so the project was on hold.
My room was left incomplete.

...but slowly and gradually there was progress...

I was just going and going and going and going.

My mom took this picture one morning, while I was in my boxers, listening to my iPod shuffle.

...and then one day...
I don't know how it happened. But I pretty much finished.
...the crumpled and paint-stained clumps of toilet paper were cleared, the furniture was moved back and the tubes of paint were sealed. My room was...clean!

I guess the only thing left to do is to give you a complete and detailed tour of the highlights of my room...

Every painting in my room represents some part of me. It's up to you to analyze it; theories are very welcome.

Directly beside my door is a painting of the priest-king of Minoa. There was something very tranquil about the original fresco that I wanted to reproduce onto my wall. Whether I did or not is subjective. I also loved the air of pride that he has on his face.

This was my favourite one to draw and definitely one of the easiest.

...And right beside the painting of the prince is my altar to several of my highschool awards...This one is my Eagle Award, which is the biggest service award that I got in highschool. I wish somebody could have taken a picture of the look on my face when they called me to the stage. Underneath the Eagle Award are other plaques and a shelf where I stash my textbooks and random language dictionaries.

And above my left wall is my picture ceiling. They're mostly of my friends during Pirates of Penzance (musical I was in), of Grad and of the random silly things that we did. Can anyone see themselves in the pics?

So this again is the painting of the bull-jumpers. Underneath the paint on the belly of the bull is an inscribed dedication to Franchino, which stands for Frankie, Charlie and Gino. Frankie and Charlie were my two best friends in the last half of highschool. Since I finished the bull shortly after the three of us went our separate ways, I thought it appropriate to dedicate it to them.

This is my dolphin wall. Dolphins are one of my two favourite animals (the other being lions) and I especially liked the Minoan portrayal of dolphins because they express strong, determined faces.

Since the colour I used on the dolphins reminded me so much of our policemen costumes in Pirates of Penzance, I decided to name each dolphin after a policeman in my musical. This one was my first and best one, and it's also my favourite one, so I named it after my favourite policeman (and my favourite person in the entire world). You know who you are...subtle tribute. haha.

Beside the dolphin wall is my keyboard (and also my guitar, in this picture). I can literally spend 6 hours on that keyboard. The seat I use is my treasure chest on top of which I placed a sheepskin. The sheet music on the keyboard is the Rent musical score. Behind the keyboard is my messy messy messy desk. And on top of my desk and my keyboard is...

My bed. I got a 6-foot tall loft bed in IKEA and I assembled it all on my own...though it took me like a billion hours. The first time I slept on it, I woke up and hit my head on the stucco of the ceiling and I missed a step on the ladder. After that I realized that I have the coolest bed in the world. In the far corner, you can see my air purifier which I use as an electric fan. Like the rest of my room, this cozy corner is usually messy.

Beside my bed is my shrine to Pirates of Penzance. I have the posters, the program and the newspaper clippings. The black cloth is a napkin I nicked from Moxie's when they over-charged me for iced tea, and then i painted a seahorse on it... and over that is my wicker bag from the Philippines which I wear once in a while.

And the final feature of my room is of course the Mycenaean woman carrying my wall clock, which is always five minutes ahead (but I'm still always late for my first lecture). It's always hidden behind my door when it's open and I can't see it at all from my bed because of the angle...mysterious girl, this one.

And the best place to chill after a very very long day of being inexhaustibly brilliant is this couch. I am by no means ever totally done. I will add more, as inspiration dictates...but for now I'm done. After working on my room for a year (on and off) and writing this blog for about three days, I think I deserve a couch-break. But before I do, I'd like to say goodbye to everyone.
Within the next week I'm gonna be seeing 14 different states and then I'm gonna be living on my own and working in Ontario until August.
I'd like to take this opportunity to tell my friends to be good while I'm gone and not to kill each other till I get back.
I'll see you all around August/September-ish.
Honestly, I mean it. Be GOOD. Or else.

Looking Back...Way Back

2006-01-29T14:19:00.000-08:00

"Ang hindî marunong lumingón sa pinanggalingan ay hindî makararatíng sa paroroonan"
(He who does not know how to look back to where he came from will not get to where he is going )

I've been noticing that a lot of Filipinos call themselves Asian, especially those that grew up here in Canada. I've never believed that. We are Asians because of the fact that our archipelago is near the Asian continent, but are we Asians as a people? I look at us and we're an entirely different people with characteristics distinct from the rest of the Asian peoples. We value personal freedoms more than all other Asian countries (first democratic country in Asia), our women have an elevated place in our culture (border-lining matriarchal), we speak an Austro-Polynesian language, and we have a passion for life that doesn't exist anywhere else in Asia (or the world, for that matter). So in light of these observations I decided to investigate just what we are exactly.

We are technically Malay but "Malay" makes it seem like our ancient ancestors migrated to the Philippines coming from, and passing through mainland Malaysia, when in reality it is actually the other way around. The ancient ancestors of the Malaysians actually had to migrate through the Philippines to get to the continent. We came from the part of Malaysia that connects to Borneo. Malay is just an over-simplified word coined by a culturally ignorant American anthropologist named H. Otley Beyer. His term "Malay" signifies brown-skinned people who live in the Indian Archipelago, Micronesia, Austronesia and Australia. How ignorant. Brown-skinned peoples in those areas aren't necessary related. And for crying out loud, please pronounce it mal-eye, not mal-eigh. The latter sounds typically Anglophonic. Long story short, we are much more than just Malay.

The origins of the Filipino peoples are much more flavoured. The first settlers of the Philippines were the Aetas (or Itas) or Negritos in Spanish. They are a pygmy people who are very short -- even for Filipinos -- have dark-brown to black skin, and have curly black hair. Their history confounds even modern Anthropologists. They are believed to have migrated from the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean to the Philippines using the landbriges that used to connect the Southeast Asian islands together during the last Ice Age. The Negrito groups ultimately migrated from Eastern Africa. Aetas still live a culture very distinct from the rest of us Pinoys who sold out to shopping malls and skating rinks.

The majority of Filipinos, however, came from a different lineage than the Aetas. Between 55,000 to 60,000 years ago, a genetically-related group of people started migrating east from the East-African/Arabian Peninsula area. They always moved along the sea through what would be called Persia, India, the south of China (which wasn't Chinese then), Taiwan, and finally -- using boats -- they came to the Philippine Archipelago. After the first wave of migration, there were several other migration passages through the Philippine Islands. Some of the ancestors of these migrants eventually populated Indonesia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Austronesia, other Pacific islands such as Hawaii, and parts of East Asia. Yes, this is why it is very different to distinguish a Flip from a Hawaiian.

After the original migrations came a series of foreign exposures that really made Filipino culture one of the most colourful in the world. The inhabitants of the Philippines have, by this time, been exposed to the cultures and religions of South Asia and the Middle East. Between 750-1500 AD (Muslim Golden Age), the Filipinos came into contact with Arab seafarers and traders. They contributed greatly to technology, culture, and they brought Islam to the Islands. The Islanders had previously been animistic, worshipping spirits of nature. The Chinese and other seafaring Asiatic peoples also made trade contact.

The most significant cultural impact on the Philippines was the Spanish impact. Ferdinand Magellan met his end (and the pointy end of Lapu-Lapu's spear) on the Philippine island of Mactan. The Philippines became a Spanish colony for 300 years. The Philippines was actually named after Philip II of Spain. Catholicism became the dominant religion, making the Philippines the only nominal Christian country in Asia. The Spanish established Manila as a major connecting port to Mexico, through which the Philippines was exposed to the Native South Americans and the rest of the known world. During the Spanish-American War, the Philippines was ceded to the States, and remained so until after WWII. PX Shopping was introduced and was enthusiastically welcomed by the Filipinos (and mourned when the states withdrew their bases). During the American occupation, Evangelical Christianity was brought to the Philippines and remains strong in the Philippines...and in me!

Now... I have to say that Filipinos don't discriminate when it comes to the birds and the bees, so logically all this foreign contact made a lot of colorful babies. Very few Filipinos are purely Filipino. This is why Filipinos have facial features which are distinctly Filipino, but from other angles seem Caucasian, Near-eastern, Asiatic, African, and even Mayan (South America).

Other clues to the origins of the Filipinos are the languages that they speak. Tagalog, like the majority of the Filipino languages and dialects, belongs to the Malayo branch of the Austro-Polynesian language group. Other members of this language group include Indonesian, Malay, Fijian, Maori (of New Zealand), Hawaiian, Malagasy (of Madagascar), Samoan, Tahitian, Chamorro (of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands), Tetum (of East Timor), and Paiwan (of Taiwan). This is in contrast to the Sino-Tibetan languages that dominate the rest of Asia. These Sino-Tibetan languages which include, and are related to, Chinese, use pitchy vowels and a nasal quality that is very infrequent in Tagalog. The Sino-Tibetan languages also use complicated semi-pictographic characters which are quite unlike the ancient Baybayin script of pre-Spanish Philippines which is more related to the Near-Eastern and Sanskrit scripts. Linguistically, Filipinos are not Asian.

The kaleidoscope of cultures which made up the Philippines began to evolve within the Philippines, as the archipelago is made up of 7100 islands which can isolate groups of people from the rest of the Philippines. As a result, the Philippines developed over 170 different groups of cultures and languages. We developed into a category of our own.

Although we are somewhat related to other Asians, Filipinos deny large parts of their history when they call themselves Asian. I think that the cultural inferiority complex possessed by many Filipinos leads many of them to identify ourselves with other cultures, resulting in the diminishment of our own. I say sucks to that. Filipinos should start making names for themselves. We can't rely on Lea Salonga and Rob Schneider to do that for us. There has to be more of us. If no other Filipino will, then I will rise to greater heights than any of us have ever risen to. I refuse to rest comfortably in insignificance.

Asians? psshhaw. I think that calling ourselves Filipino should suffice.

...now i just need to find out why I look like I came out of Ancient Egypt.

What's in a name?

2006-01-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

I will pay a million bucks to any of you if you can find another person in this planet with this name: GINO RUGGIERO LAPUEBLA CANLAS
That is MY name, and MY name alone. I will gladly recite it to anyone who is unfortunate enough to ask me what my name is. I'm absolutely fascinated with my name; I love it to bits.

Okay, I'll start with my last name. CANLAS. I have absolutely no idea what it means. All I know about it is that it is somewhat common in Southern Luzon and Pampanga in the Philippines. If anyone has more information on this surname, I would love to know about it...Doing my own personal research, I found that there used to be an old Irish clan named Canlas. The name isn't a Gaelic name, but it came to Ireland during the Anglo-Norman conquest of the British Isles during the Middle Ages. Canlas is a location surname, derived from Cauntelo in Northern France. The Norman name from which Canlas derives was originally de Cauntelo, which came from the Latin name, de Cantelupe. It can also be spelled Cantillon, Cantlin, Cantlowe, and Cantilupe. This is probably a long shot, but it would be really nice to know that I have French-speaking Norman ancestors.

Then there's my middle name: LAPUEBLA. For some reason, Filipinos have their mother's surnames as their middle name. Lapuebla is a very rare surname in the Philippines and everyone named Lapuebla is definitely related to my family (mom's side). La Puebla in Spanish means "town" in the feminine. It's got a very interesting story behind it...A few generations ago when the Philippines was still a Spanish Colony (sigh...) my maternal great-grandfather's family's last name was de la Cruz. Anyway, my mom's lolo got wanted by the Spanish and we changed our last name to Lapuebla. I was wondering if it would have been easier to stay obscure by staying de la Cruz, since half the Philippines has that name...but I'm alive, so obviously "Lapuebla" kept us safe.

RUGGIERO. Since Filipino parents don't have a choice of their child's middle name, they give their children two first names. Why they picked Ruggiero, I have no idea. It's an Italian version of the Old Germanic words hrod (famous) and ger (spear). In Teutonic mythology, Hrothgar was a great warrior, and in Old English, Hrodgar conquered Sicily and drove the Arabs out of it.

GINO. Another Italian name. My Italian professor did a double-take when he first did attendance and saw my name and then my face. Yep, my name has two Italian parts. Gino doesn't really have a specific meaning. Gino can mean "gracious gift of God" from the Hebrew name Yohannon. It can also mean "monstrous" in another language that I can't remember. But in Italian, Gino is just a nickname that you attach to names. For example, Georgio turns into Georgino and Luigi turns into Luigino, and for short you just call them Gino. At first I didn't like this because my name means nothing...but then I realized that I can attach my name to so many other names, meaning my name can mean almost anything I want it to mean. That's encouraging because it means that I control who I want to be and what I will become.

The Ruggierian Chaos-Amusement Theory

2005-11-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

I take the skytrain on my way home from UBC. Today, as I was arriving on the skytrain platform, the skytrain doors started to close. I had no intentions of waiting another two minutes for the next one, so I ran at the train and jammed my foot in between the doors. The doors wouldn't let go of my feet for what seemed like a very long time (more like 5 seconds actually); I actually thought that the train was gonna drag me all the way to Surrey in more than one piece. At one point I was talking to the door telling it, "Oh no, you don't!" Anyway, the door opened and I got a few laughs out of it (from me and from other people)...

I suddenly became reminiscent of all the funny compulsive things that I've done which brought about mild catastrophe, and also the incessant laughter which dominated my five years in highschool...and my whole life actually... [dreamy flashback music...]

Just off the top of my head...I don't remember when it was exactly, but sometime in grade 11, I bragged to Charlie that my knees could touch my forehead...well the first four tries, no... but the fifth time I was able to touch my forehead with my right knee. But at the same time, I concussed myself and knocked my ass on the floor. It was frickin hilarious. My forehead was slightly purplish for a whole day.

And when I was on my exchange trip to Quebec, we went to the waterpark in Valcartier. After trying all the waterslides, my friends and I decided to take a stab at the hugest, tallest water slide in the park. I swear, this slide was, like, at a 90-degree angle. Keep in mind that this is the biggest waterpark in Canada (Super Splash Parc Aquatique). Anyway, we get up to the top of the slide, and there were lightning bolts in the horizon. Lightning! Yo, English Lit majors, foreshadowing much? Honestly. My knees were shaking. My turn to slide came. Of course, the friends that I met in Quebec didn't know how scared of heights I was, and I had no intention of telling them that I was. I had to get onto this slip-and-slide mat and I had to push myself down the slide. Just when I was at the very edge, I get stuck. There I was staring down at the vastness of the Earth, and thinking about the many wonderful ways that I could fall and die. I eventually had to hump the mat until it started to slip down the edge...and it finally did and I felt my stomach all the way to my toes as I plunged face first. That was the best fall from grace (and dignity) ever.

...and then I go further back... when I was in Casa (Italian metonymy for 'Kindergarten' in my Montessori school in the Philippines), I was quite a show off (still am). One Sunday at church, I climbed a low scaffold and long story short, I fell. I hit my head but I don't think it hurt. I was fine and smiling, until somebody told me that my forehead was bleeding. At first, I argued the non-existence of blood on my head. What nonsense. And then I actually touched my head and I felt blood and bone. Then came the crying. I remember my dad looking out of the curtains inside the church and seeing me and running out. I remember going into a taxi, and seeing the driver's face (he was freaked). I remember the emergency room, I remember a bright lamp, and I remember how clumsy some of the doctors were. One of them actually just stuck the anaesthetizing needle through my pants. I screamed, "May sugat ako diyan!!!" I got a couple of stitches. I was a poster boy for misbehaviour at school. I still have the scar as an amusing reminder, although you can barely see it because it's hidden by several layers of sunburn.

And then there were my days vacationing in Batangas, in the mountains and the jungle with my cousins, away from my parents...
Wow, was I a dumbass! There was that one time that I cut down almost all of my uncle's banana trees prematurely with my cousin Niko. I was reamed out, to say the least. Then there was that one time when I pretended to drown so that a life-guard would come rescue me. Well a life-guard did and I laughed at his face and I wasn't allowed in the deep-end anymore (not that it stopped me). And I swear, a year later, the life-guard still remembered me. Then there was one time when I climbed a tree with several of my cousins, and the tree ended up collapsing under our collective weight. That was fun. Sigh, good times.

Back to highschool...I've bumped into countless poles and posts. I've ran into tables, smashed onto people, and jumped off chairs and landed on my chest. There was one time when I was presenting an English project on the German movie "Run, Lola, Run" with friends. Our presentation was about Karma. In our presentation, I was supposed to pass a ball at Alyssa but I threw it too hard...I hit her on the head, I think. That was not good. And then later, when I was pulling down the projector screen I smashed my head with the heavy metallic edge of the screen. I was on the ground. hahaha. But we proved the whole karma point, though unintentionally. I hit Alyssa, so the screen hit me.

My life is fun. So my theory is... Chaos+Me=Amusement. I call it the Ruggierian Chaos-Amusement Theory. Ruggierian comes from the second part of my first name, Gino Ruggiero.

I play by faith and not by sight

2005-11-07T16:08:00.000-08:00

For the past two years, I've been teaching myself how to play piano. I am NOT doing this the conventional way. Most people learn piano very methodically: they learn their scales and notes and they learn proper technique and other things... One thing these methods all have in common is that I find them all redundant and unnecessary. This method of teaching is what some of my UBC profs call 'pedagogical hazing'...well, at least that's what I call it. It repels so many potential musicians from becoming all that they could be. Many of them give up on piano.

I personally said 'NO' to the traditional way of learning piano. I pick a piece of music that I like and I decipher each part of the piece one by one and I just allow the music to take control of me. I have no definite rules. Music, being an art, can't be forced into a prison of restrictions. It is human nature to create because we were made in the image of the Ultimate Creator. Art is the passionate release of humanity in its rawest form, so I find it really hard to see passion when I'm watching a pianist play while his eyes are transfixed onto a piece of paper with dots and lines. Reading music while playing the piano is...regurgitation. The only necessity to playing the piano is learning which notes correspond on a music staff (only at first), your ears, hands, and sheer will. By strictly adhering to the sheet music, we force an art into a bleak realm of impossibility. I say learn the piece, manipulate it and make it yours!

That brings us to my point. I was struck with an epiphany when I was learning a piece the other day ("New York State of Mind" by Billy Joel, if you want to know). I realized that when I play, I don't need my eyes as much as I needed my ears or my fingers. I don't think I need them at all to make music. Even if my eyes are closed, each key will always be the same distance apart from the other keys, and each key will always make the same sound that they always do (if the thing is tuned). We are fingers playing a cosmic piano, and we have no eyes. And whether or not we see the notes we hit, we make sounds. ...so how do we, as fingers, avoid making discordant sounds? By doing exactly what the Player wants us to do. The Player who knows the music. The Player whose hands we are all part of. .and that is my rant.