Read if you’re:
- fascinated with frogs
- curious how post apocalyptic Manila would look like (or smth like that)
Author: Dyne
Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut
I haven’t posted lately because I had to review for my comprehensive exams. Hopefully one step closer to finishing my MFA! 🤞
I’m currently reading Vonnegut. He’s the kind of writer I aspire to be: effortless wit, the kind of humor you reserve for your closest friends but hope that some like minded stranger would understand.
Natural History of the Senses – Diane Ackerman
Read if you’re:
– studying the physical world through a different lens
– overwhelmed by sensory response
– in need of a different kind of history lesson
Jiro the Reader
I think he understand this better than I do.
Reading Plato with an intensity that only dogs have.
Then he realizes he can’t read.
Proceeds to potate instead.
Ang Hirap Mong Mahalin
Rough translation: You’re difficult to love.
I still dream about convenience stores in Tokyo. We have Family Mart and Lawson in Metro Manila and I’m trying to fool myself that its essentially the same. It’s not. Like how Minute Maid in the US is worlds apart from the Minute Maid here in PH.
Of course, everything here is cheaper, it’s not even pretending to be anything more. It knows what it is and its nestled in its mediocrity. I’m tired of making excuses for the society I live in. Around this time last year, I was still idealistic that we’re doing something meaningful or noble by teaching in a public school. Now, I just feel cheated. I cannot teach anymore because I have lost faith and idealism. Sad, I know.
I’m not going into the specifics because I’m saving the frustration for my utopian-themed masters thesis, estimated date of completion, if all goes according to plan: 2021/2022.
I also stopped watching the news. If you’ve been listening to the local PH news, you’d know why. It’s not that I’m disappointed because that would entail you had faith in the first place. I’m amazed at how we are living up to the standards – there are no standards. Now, that’s how you survive this country.
Armageddon in Retrospect – Kurt Vonnegut
Read if you’re:
– wondering about what happens in wartime
– looking for wit in weird situations
– ready to chuckle and cry in a single paragraph
–
Preferred Pencils and Highlighters
Dekada ‘70 – Lualhati Bautista
You know why we need to read this.
Now more than ever.
30-Second Quantum Theory – Brian Clegg
Read if you:
– want to understand and laugh at Quantum Physics memes
– have 30 seconds to spare
Declined or Accepted – Is there a Proper Ratio?
I have taken courageous steps this year by submitting to 5 publications and 1 grant. I did not get the grant, I was declined in one publication, and was accepted in another. As for the others, I’m still waiting. I also started this blog a few weeks into the pandemic because I was desperate for a sense of achievement, or progress, or purpose, or whatever feeling I could get that isn’t anxiety.
Never giving up on your dreams is a cliché because at some point, you need to hit yourself in the head and say, okay, you’re not cut out for this. I know, writing is a form of expression but some people aren’t contented with just ‘expressing’ themselves. Some people want to be read. Yes, me, I’m ‘some people’.
You win some, you lose some. I’m so used to getting rejection letters but it never gets easier. I’m trying to fool myself into having a normal day and not thinking about it. That’s wrong. I have to mourn. I created something and it’s just not good enough to be published. I can be a little sad. Cry for about five minutes and keep typing again.
And then there are small victories that lifted me up from the losing streak.
But, I still have to ask myself: how do I know that I need to keep on going? And how do I know that it’s just time to settle and that I’ll just be a (kawaii?) potato all my life?
And is being an unpublishable potato such a bad thing?
💜 Dyne
alexisvilla.com 