1) i am a student on the move and sometimes i feel like i don't belong anywhere. 2) mobility is quite interesting though. it colors my dreams 3) sometimes in love with life. sometimes tired with everything. id say im generally interested in life. 4) seriously believes in the wisdom behind painting velikden eggs.
Fly. Walk. Converse. Discover. A Filipina in her mid-20s records whatever.
Dada obtained her masters in Human Security Studies from the University of Tokyo in March 2008. While not formally trained in the arts, Dada is interested in multi-media work and performance. Her works generally discuss issues of space and identity. In 2006, she founded Nabua Forum, her hometown's first website.
I can't even remember when I last wrote a poem. Before, I enjoyed just walking around to take photos of just about anything.
But now, the world (or Tokyo) seems not to be very colorful anymore.
Why is that? Is it just me?
People tell me it's just because of stress. There's a mountain of books to read, a whole basket of clothes to wash, a pile of readings to understand, a number of issues to resolve.
The little shark swimming in the video above must be bored too. Perhaps it is not too much fun to swim back and fourth in a one- or two-meter aquarium. It is not so much fun too to just move around my four tatami-sized room. According to one of the bartenders, the fish wouldn't even grow anymore because it's body has adjusted to its its little world (the Parthenon!).
I really should go out of my dark little world, too. Because I need to grow.
Sigh, I miss my country's fluffy clouds...
And the heavy traffic on the way home...
And the flood after the rain...
Well for sure I'll be seeing beautiful clouds from the plane again on Monday, when I fly to HK to see my HBB.
it's exactly 1.29 am here in tokyo and i am alone here in my apartment which my flatmate's friend has jokingly called a "dump"...
Anyway...i just came back from one of Japan's more famous fireworks show, and, it was held just 2 minutes away from the train station nearest my place. and yes, today's trip to see the fireworks was actually my very first, despite the fact that "hanabis" are probably one of the events which foreigners living or visiting Japan would normally not miss. Sporting their most special summer yukata, Japanese and a good number of foreigners came to the somewhat sleepy (compared of course to the hustle and bustle of Shinjuku and Shibuya) Futagotamagawa in thousands, and, to all together say in well-coordinated exclamations of delight, while watching the fireworks sparkle against the dark (cloudy or polluted?) sky: Sugooooiiii... Kawaiiii...
So anyway, would you believe that it was actually my very first hanabi? I lived in Osaka for a whole year five years back, then I came back here after working for two years in Manila and now, i will soon be celebrating my third year of stay in tokyo, and not once in all these months did I share the excitement of getting my own yukata and head to the most crowded, busiest, and most picturesque hanabis in Japan. This country already seems like my second(not so sweet) home when we consider the length of stay in a country, yet until now, I wonder why I cannot still love so much of it. I do appreciate all the convenience I can get here, and the free education, among many others, but it is not warm enough to be called home. I don't know, is it because I cannot feel that this country loves me back? I miss my friends in the Philippines. Life in tokyo would have been a lot easier with them around. I miss my friends who share the same level of angas. Those good friends who share the same ways in loving and living life.
Let me go back to writing about hanabi before I get overly dramatic here. So anyway, a hanabi is a much awaited summer event in all of Japan. I'd be hypocritical if I say that I did not enjoy today's display of pyrotechnics. I sure did! And I loved such classical type of fireworks:
and this one, is uhh, well, particularly japanese... (this is especially for my friend Ces, the true hello kitty addict)
and finally, among all the photos of fireworks which I took, I think this one expresses all the confusion I am feeling now... (reminds me too of abstract expressionist paintings by j. pollock)
So, that's it. It's hanabi season. It's also tough season for international students here who are still unsure about what steps to take next. Is this goint to be my last summer in Tokyo? We have to decide by October if we would or would not apply for scholarship extension. Am I applying or what? And if I pursue further studies, am I going to enjoy the rest of my stay here? And the most relevant of all questions: am I even going to graduate?! sigh.
well anyway, the hanabi was still not bad. had lotsa fun with the some of the filipino students in tokyo.
im gonna start my own fruit juice bar someday. abangan nyo!
written at about 23:00pm last July 25, 2007
should i or should i not go back to studying film? something tells me i should. i remember that i really cried over the forced decision to shift out of film school before, on my my second year in university, because though we were paying only 10% of my matriculation (i enjoyed gov't scholarship as my mother was, and still is, village captain), the extra expenses (like money for buying black and white film, photo paper, editing fee, camera rentals) were all too expensive.
Let me give a bit of background on my how i was sent to school. this is a bit personal, but im finding the internet galaxy as a somewhat reliable confidante... Anyway, because of lack of financial resources, my family resorted to the quite common practice (in the philippines) where the elder takes of the burden from the parent and takes on the task of sending his or her younger sibling's education. To relieve our mother, who became a single parent when i was 13, of the heavy burden of sending all four of us to school, our eldest sister helped by taking the responsibility to send my second sis to university. Second sister later on took on the responsibility to send me to college. Of course I also helped (a teeny tiny bit as i am an eternal student) in the education of our youngest sibling.
So anyway, despite my love for film, I had really no choice but to leave the field, and as advised by the elders, to be practical. I moved to journalism (which i hated til the end) but had little interest in it. I even considered shifting to the art studies department when I was already writing my thesis for journalism. So after I shifted out, my passion for photography remained, and my stint as student photographer for the university school paper not only gave me free and unlimited access to the darkroom, but a source of a regular honoraria which I badly needed to augment the very little allowance I was receiving from my siblings. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate all the support that I received, for without it, as we Filipinos would say, "baka pinulot na ako sa kangkungan." So anyway, my allowance from my freshman year to my senior barely increased 5% every year. I remember that I had heated discussions with our eldest as I demanded for allowance increase. While my "baon" remained at barely at 1 US dollar per day, I worked hard at the university paper. There, I not only earned financially, I was also happy as my photos were being published (many times on the front page and I also printed some nice photo essays!). I met my best friends in the school paper, and I enjoyed every presswork with them, at the end of each week at the fifth floor of UP's Vinzons Hall.
I forgot to mention that I was (and still am) a poor photographer. My friends lent me their manual cameras but they later on got tired of me not owning my own... So that's basically one of the significant reasons why I moved from the photo section of the newspaper, to the writing section.
This is getting long and I'm getting bored while writing this. Recently, I am finding it hard to concentrate! Must be the effect of Tokyo's summer.
So anyway, allow me to go back to my question: should i or should i not go back to studying film? you see, i am finishing my MA in march of 2008. currently a recipient of japanese govt scholarship, i am studying for free and can even extend my education for 3 years more for phd. Those who know me would be shocked if they knew im actually thinking of taking doctors. I am definitely not an academic type of person. Practice cannot be compared to theory. But... I am considering phd, because of the question raised in this blog. I think (not so sure though), I want to go back to film school. And I can never afford it, unless I abuse (hehe) or extend my scholarship. But, it's not easy. I've already been out of film for such a long time. I was sure did involved for a short time in conceptual art, but my involvement in it was too short for me to generate an artist portfolio. And besides, my bachelors degree, and my would-be masters degree, are from fields which are quite divorced from the arts, or from film. So that's it, I believe I am not qualified.
