Looking Back

I discovered historian Ambeth Ocampo’s essays back in high school: we were taking up the Noli and El Fili in Panitikan (Literature, in Filipino) class and our teacher wanted us to compile newspaper clippings about Jose Rizal. We didn’t have a newspaper subscription, but I lived a few blocks away from the Inquirer office so I went to their library to get some clippings. The library lady handed me a whole folder of articles (pre-digitization; this was the late 90’s) — most of them were from Ambeth Ocampo’s newspaper column, and I remember being so engrossed reading them that the librarian had to walk over and nudge me to let me know they were closing for the afternoon.

As soon as I enrolled in Ateneo for college, I had my heart set on taking Ambeth Ocampo’s History 165 (Rizal and the Emergence of the Philippine Nation) class, and fortuitously, I got a good random number during reg that sem I was scheduled to take that subject so I was able to enlist in his class.

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Letters and Secrets


I was wandering around the bookstore while my brother was loading up on school supplies (it was him, not me, I swear!) when I chanced upon the bargain bin and found two hardcover books that happened to be on my wishlist: The Love Letters of Great Men by Ursula Doyle, and PostSecret: The Secret Lives of Men and Women compiled by Frank Warren.

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The back-up plan

Raaats, my internet at home has been down for three days. And in three days, I’ve finally finished the new Thursday Next novel (you’ll read the review soon enough), whipped up a batch of pesto that will probably tide me over until Easter (ahh, long story), made a lot of bookmarks (I had a lot of spare time), watched the quake coverage on CNN and NHK (oh, my heart breaks for Japan!), and finally watched a bunch of movies that I’ve been meaning to watch for months.

But not being able to blog makes me antsy, and I didn’t want a repeat of the stress I went through during that nasty plugin incident. I’m not sure when our internet service will get restored, seeing as my mom is getting our landline changed  and it’s currently out of commission (sheesh, you never know how useful a landline phone is until it’s gone) until the new one gets set up.
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Ramona and Beezus

Beverly Cleary was a big part of my childhood —  I discovered Ramona in second grade at the classroom reading corner, which had a classmate’s dog-eared copy of Ramona the Pest. Soon I was hunting down the other Ramona books in the library, and reading Beverly Cleary’s other books, too. I wanted so badly to live on Klickitat Street with Ramona, Beezus, Henry Huggins, and the whole gang.

Ramona Quimby was a character I could really relate to (yep, the highly independent middle child / little sister consumed by the need to find her place and stand out, forever getting into trouble with her wild imagination and crazy ideas) so I was really curious when I found out about the Ramona and Beezus movie.

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The Lost Language

Back in December, the Filipino book bloggers met up with Marianne Villanueva, who is one of the most delightful authors I’ve ever had the chance to meet.

I got a signed copy of her book,  The Lost Language: Stories (and in nice paper, too!) and I finally got to read it earlier this year.

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