road trip, the Comm Arts way

Posted by Ai on Feb 6, 2012 in Lakwatcha!, travels | 15 comments

Million thanks to the people who took some of their precious time reading, sharing, blogging, re-blogging, tweeting, google plus-ing (whut?), and commenting on my article published in Philippine Daily Inquirer‘s Young Blood last week.

Many personal messages surprised and touched me. Friends told me that it was trending in FB, it’s the top most read article in Inquirer.net last week, and (the boyfriend said) my blogsite reached 2.7 million hits. I appreciate them all. Thank you.

One of my initial reactions was: Wow, many people still read. Cool! Some wanted to meet us in person, and some were inspired to write, to travel, to smile, and to blog. Some even joked about riding buses more often.

But, since I’m a shy person, let me divert your attention to more interesting people than me. My Comm Arts friends.

Communication Arts is usually the butt end of jokes in the university because according to others,

1. we don’t have higher Math/Science subjects

2. we’re “just” doing theater, our curriculum has nothing in it but general education courses

3. and we are “maaarte” (help me with the English term for this… finicky? girly? flirty?).

I just shrug these off and the hundred associations to “Comm Arts” because while others make a fuss about us, we rock and roll.

jay

Let me introduce you to two awesome Comm Arts graduates whom I’ve worked with since college days: Kei and Jay. The three of us belong to the same batch, 2001, and from neighboring towns in Laguna. Later on, we did Lakwatcha.

Jay is a game designer at Makati based Anino Games. He works with a team who conceptualizes, designs, and tests games for PC, mobile phones, and other devices. Since his is a job that needs a non-stop source of creativity, I am hands down to Jay’s storytelling powers and designs. To top it all, he and his teammates recently won Manila Game Jam 2012!

kei

Now, Prof Kei.

She graduated magna cum laude. (LOL she doesn’t like being introduced this way). She finished MA Media Studies (Film) in UP Diliman and acclaimed film critic Roland Tolentino is her thesis adviser.

This month, she heads a film festival called “Pelikultura.” Last year’s festival appeared to be successful and I’m sure this year’s will be, too.

road trip

Last December the three of us met in Santa Rosa, Laguna to have our first unplanned Laguna-Quezon-Batangas road trip with Jay driving a van. You can check out the long adventure story at his website (thesalmonellawars.blogspot.com), but if it were a story, the premise could’ve been:

I was published in Young Blood!

Posted by Ai on Jan 31, 2012 in FEATURED, hugs and kisses, self | 110 comments

Today’s a lovely day. I’m back at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) headquarters in Los Baños to start another issue of Rice Today. IRRI is just beside the UPLB campus, so walking around the university brings me back to my golden days of 2001 when I was a freshman. I felt like a student again walking with young people most of whom carry nothing but a notebook, and perhaps a ballpen in one pocket. A typical college student. Watching the students walk to their buildings, I was thinking lots of things but I’ll blog about this next time because I need to work now…but this day started lovely as some friends tagged me in an FB post. I was published in Inquirer’s Young Blood! Yehey!

virtual flowers for me (photo taken in saigon)

And because of this single story, I received a hundred messages and a million blog hits. Thanks to those 11,000 readers who liked and shared the Inquirer piece!

my first economic report published in an international magazine

Posted by on Jan 21, 2012 in self | 4 comments

Slowly I am inching my way to learning about my job, that is writing reviews/ updates on exports (for an online trade publication that features highly classified information) and being one of the editors of Rice Today, an international magazine (with print-run of 5,500-6,000 distributed around the world). Both publications are dedicated to rice, the political crop that feeds half of the world.

To be honest, I am having serious difficulty shifting from Communication Arts and Comparative Literature (the fields where I came from) to Economics and rice science, but I am learning everyday–both easy and hard way.

Normally I don’t write about my job because I don’t know of anyone close to me who’d be interested in international commodity trades or rice varieties. But after a long meeting with publishers this week, I thought of posting in my blog some of the things that I write.

please click on the link below to view this article better

When I posted this link on Facebook, I didn’t expect anyone to comment or like it, but I got a couple of “Likes” and somebody commented I sound like a rice expert. Another friend, Rye, said I am such a rice nerd. LOL. If only they knew my hardships.These made my day because after all, my baby steps in learning to write publish-worthy articles are gaining momentum.

I hope to write more.

Presenting… the 1st Graduate Students’ Conference at DLSU, Manila

Posted by on Jun 28, 2009 in write-ups on culture | 6 comments

UP prof Dr Roland Tolentino magnetizing everyone’s attention at DLSU during his talk on pop culture (in front of him is literary critic Dr Isagani Cruz, at the plenary hall)

First-time events are always historical, path-breaking.

Daring as it can be, De La Salle University (DLSU) Department of Filipino together with the Research and Publications Office of College of Liberal Arts, in cooperation with DLSU CHED Zonal Research Center, organized the first ever multi-disciplinary conference of graduate students around the Philippines.

On June 26 and 27, graduate students, including those who just graced through their masters and PhD,

will travel, will go malling, will check in, will live

Posted by on Jun 24, 2009 in z | 2 comments

As of this writing, 473 cases of a(h1n1) have been tallied, one just died, and classes are being suspended in the Philippines, but the Department of Health sees no reason to panic.

Travel companies do.