Among Other Things

It's getting increasingly difficult to manage so many online spaces. There's something to be said about blogs and websites in this age of social media. Mostly that it's become so tedious. Keeping my IG account(s) up to date is work on its own that I've sadly neglected this little piece of online real estate—sad, considering that I pay for my domain yearly. Are domains still a thing these days, or are social media handles enough?

It’s the 9th of September, and I’m in Seoul, South Korea. I’m sitting here in my hotel room, resting, as I nurse a cold.

Pons, it’s practically a year since you left us, and it’s still so hard to accept. We’re all still navigating our way through the pain and the grief of losing you, I still find myself crying on the way to school knowing you won’t be there to greet me good morning, to ask me what I have planned for the day’s classes.

I think about the past year, and that day is still so fresh in my memory. The fact that what happened to you took place in the office and not anywhere else is a minuscule comfort. That you were attended to so quickly is far better than the possible alternatives had that happened to you at home, or while you were on your way somewhere else.

Can’t believe I’m realizing this just now. Or maybe I always knew it and just never really thought about it more.

This is coming from reaching into my tote bag and feeling around for my little coin purse that I crocheted, which was squished under my notebook carrier that I also...crocheted. And then I thought about how many other things I wondered if I could make before resorting to just looking for it in a store somewhere.

I distinctly remember thinking if I could make a shelf, create a new handle for a kettle that didn’t have one, a little bag to carry my essentials when a backpack is too much. I’ve made myself a box to carry my softbox bulb, diffuser screen, and remote, coasters for the cafe, an A3-sized semestral calendar that isn’t interrupted by breaks in between months so I can see everything week by week. My first instinct when I planned the 2018 ID exhibit was that I—not a committee or anyone else—could mount posters on foam board slats so we wouldn’t just be sticking tarp onto the walls. And I immediately went to National Bookstore and bought all their foam board.

After years of online classes and being able to teach Print & Pub again, I’m getting back into this old habit. I love making things myself, almost to a fault. It always isn’t necessary, I just...want to do things with my hands that doesn’t require looking at a screen all the time. Which kind of resulted in that sem calendar I did the other day.

I’m meeting Aze later to talk about Print & Pub since it’s going to be her first time teaching it. I feel bad that Ponci isn’t around anymore to teach it with me, because it was so fun being able to last year. We co-wrote content, and had the kids use our illustrations from the birding guide we did a few years ago for the Ateneo Wild. It was like a nice full circle moment for us.

Normally, I would write a long-ass entry about Very Strong Feelings, but it’s 7 minutes past midnight, and I do not have the mental nor emotional capacity to discuss it at length.

Yeah, I’m about to rant about teaching again.

I don’t really write as often anymore, do I? I’m not sure if it’s a product of just having a lot of things to do that there’s no time to just sit down with my thoughts and write like I used to. I was about to type that maybe just not a lot is happening that’s worth writing about, but that’s just not true. I can chalk it up to being lazy, too.

I spent some time last night reading old blog entries and was pretty amazed at just how often I used to write, and how much I had to say at the time. Now it seems like I have less and less to say every time I feel like writing. Or maybe this is me now post-COVID, where my brain can no longer handle being stuck on one task for too long. Or maybe I’ve developed ADHD. I dunno.

I have this memory that sometimes pops up at odd times (now being one of them, as I sit downstairs with my coffee and checking my student's submissions). It's very vivid to me, and I'm still trying to figure out why.

I was in first grade. I was banned from borrowing books from the library for the rest of the year when I was told that I didn't return a book that I had borrowed. What happened was I brought it back to the library when I was done reading it at home, and put it in one of the shelves. I didn't return the book properly, but I did return it. I remember it very clearly.

I felt so wronged as a kid to be banned from borrowing books for that first instance of misunderstanding. I felt out of place since my classmates could borrow books on days we were brought to the library, and I could only read while I was there. I couldn't take books home to enjoy before I went to sleep.

I'm pretty sure the librarians would have eventually noticed that the "missing book" was in one of the shelves as they made sure everything was sorted. But you know, I was still banned for my entire first grade life.

More than a year into the pandemic, and we've miraculously survived. But the bleeding is getting harder to stop. We can't stem the tide. I'm fearing the worst for us, if I'll be honest. Not sure if it's because I've lost my incredible sense of optimism and fighting spirit, but it's just really coming to terms with the fact that we just can't keep up.

The bills are piling up, and there has been no assistance from the government despite promises since last year. We were just starting to do okay early this year with people and orders coming in, so we were gradually picking up our pace by trying to evolve once again. But lockdown happened and it basically cut us up anew. We couldn't accept guests which I really feel is how we managed to survive. We don't rely much on advertising, we've always gotten new customers through word of mouth. Whenever we did try going down the ad route, the gains from it were very short-lived and the costs ultimately outweighed them. We couldn't risk losing any more money.

Maybe it's time to let go. We knew the pandemic would eventually kill our small business, we just weren't sure when or how quickly. We survived a year despite many, many other small businesses like us closing up shop. We did so much, but the hits kept on coming and they keep on coming.

I always felt very strongly about letting go and giving up the fight. But I don't see what more I can do, what more I can add, what more I can change. It's difficult to think about letting go. This was the place that introduced me to my closest friends, that helped me grow after so many of life's hardships, that brought me back to life. This place was home.

I'm pretty sure a lot of people would think I'm being overly dramatic about a coffee shop. At the end of the day, it's a business. Businesses live and die, especially during a recession. But there's just so much about this place that I find it so heartbreaking to put it to rest. I know the most important thing is not the place itself. The friends I made, the experiences, the lessons, the memories. But these are all attached to this place which makes it feel like cutting off a part of myself.

The photo above was one I didn't take. It was sent to me while I was in Japan with some friends, so I could make a regular post on Instagram (I had just been recently, officially hired as the social media manager). I've always loved seeing Nine Three like this. Filled with people, very likely people sitting in one corner talking to people way over in the other corner. I loved knowing who our regulars were and entertaining their questions or just talking about coffee in general.

We've been in this hell hole of a pandemic for more than a year now, and it's been so much more difficult to focus on...well, anything right now. It's much more difficult bringing myself to be productive and for majority of this pandemic so far, I had convinced myself that I was fine and I wasn't all that affected. But I guess it was a slow burn, because there have been days in the past month or so that I just. Couldn't. Work. Like my brain wanted to do all these things—school work, personal projects, get some tasks done, but my body just. Didn't want to.

If you're out there reading this silly little blog of mine and you've been having a horrible time stuck at home and kicking yourself for not being productive...you are not alone, and it's okay to not be productive all the time. We're all going through this massive trauma, and we can't force ourselves to be okay with it if we aren't.

Thrill of Possibility

I wrote about this on my IG story, but I felt this required an actual post, somewhere. This felt like the best place to do it. I rarely wax sentimental now.

Late night January 29, I was sitting at the cafe counter next to Ryan. It was a quiet evening in the cafe. We had just come from dinner in Teacher’s Village after running a cafe errand. He was opening MTG packs and putting the cards on the counter and this particular one caught my eye as it sat in front of me. I read the flavor text quietly, and it rang in my head.

We spent some portions of that evening sitting outside on the curb just talking about our lives—what I recall from that random string of stories was how I once sat in that same spot with Pat watching a lunar eclipse and being amused by how the moon looked like an apple in a stocking.

Pretty soon, the cafe had closed but we elected to stay and hang out on the back of his pickup, refusing to go home. More story-telling and some hand holding because that was as far as we had gotten at the time. And not too long past midnight, it became official. In those first moments, it was simultaneously nothing, and everything.

It all feels very poetic. Things were ending and beginning; were nothing and everything. The day had literally just ended and a new one was beginning. While January 30th wasn’t the very end of the month, it was a signal that it was ending and February was coming. Our relationship had just ignited. It was simultaneously nothing and everything.

—

The transition to 2 wheels

I’m currently sitting at the cafe, taking a break from grading for the semester. It’s only 1 PM, so I think I have some time to pause reading thesis papers and write up a blog entry. You know, to update whoever even finds my life remotely interesting. Or to somehow document the new things that have been going on.

December last year, I made the conscious decision to start bike commuting. I’ve never ridden a bike on the city streets; I don’t even remember the last time I rode a bike prior to getting mine. But the saying really is true, as silly as it sounds talking about this—it really is just like riding a bike.

We’ve been sitting through this pandemic since March. It’s the middle of November now, and I sorely miss my friends. I was thinking about this a few days ago when it just so happened that a bunch of us were at the cafe for one reason or another—we really do take for granted the tiny, little things.

There are so many small instances that we don’t give a second thought. For me, it’s sitting in the cafe one a quiet night with just a few of our friends there. Sitting behind the counter and being bored. Parking my car right outside Areté, and yet still having a bit of a work out just to get up to the department. Running up and down the stairs before and after class. Walking along Rosa Alvero on cool evenings with friends when we want to go get a bite to eat outside the cafe. Chatting up new customers. Talking to them not behind a plastic screen. Breathing without a mask. The tiresome Monday nights when we play badminton. The Saturday morning lull before thesis plenaries. Driving to Malabon to see (and attempt to steal) my boyfriend’s cat. The frustration of planning trips with my group of friends because there are so many of us. The post-thesis lunches with my co-advisers. Consultations on the department couches. Writing on our glass boards. Spotting Martin as he walks into the FA office and into his cubicle, or Ponci slowly coming into view as I make my way to our usual spot behind the pillar by the windows. Reading and making comments on actual pieces of paper than on my screen. Making a drink and serving it to a customer. Asking people to share a table when there isn’t an empty one available.

I got to hung out once with some of our friends for a birthday thing. We were all standing outside the events hall, wind in our face, cups in our hands, and I was booking a Grab to pick up food from Makati for my own birthday celebration at home that night. It was nice being able to gather, albeit incompletely, and not have to worry about much for a few minutes. To just laugh and hope we could see each other more. It was nice pretending things were normal, when they were far from it.

We’re 8 months into this pandemic, and a bunch of typhoons have ravaged our country. Our government is failing to serve its people with a few unsurprising exceptions like our Vice President. Small businesses are bleeding and slowly closing, online classes are difficult for both teachers and students, and many have even lost their homes, their livelihood, their lives. It’s hard to imagine that all this would all happen when we were sitting in our little cafe on Rosa Alvero, quietly enjoying the slow but promising upward trend of success and carefully planning growing the business.

I do not like the idea of making absolutely everything convenient for me. That sounds strange, but I have a point.

Ever since I was probably a teenager, I always recall my parents suggesting to me if I could have someone pick me up rather than getting to a place myself. My young mind was all, “Yeah that makes sense.” Whether it was with friends, or my then boyfriend, often the suggestion was to always make it more convenient for me.

But fast forward into adult life, and sometimes I still hear that suggestion. And it irks me. Why should other people be subjected to making my life easier? A lot of the time, because I have good friends, they don’t mind. But for the most part, I’m trying to get rid of that little worm in my brain telling me to just ask someone to do a thing for me instead. It’s been so ingrained in my head that it kind of made me a little dependent or helpless at some points in my life. And that wasn’t good for a then young adult.

I am always in the place where I am most needed. These days, in this pandemic, it’s just one of two places—home, or the cafe. If I am needed by my students for most of the day, I’m home so I can take their calls. I can take calls anywhere, technically, but I prefer to be in a setting where I can’t be distracted by other things. Sometimes at the cafe, even though I’m seemingly busy with something else, my help is sometimes asked for. And I always oblige. So I stay home for class-intensive days. Else, I’m at the cafe. So I can see what’s going on, see if anything goes wrong, and help as needed—whether it’s to put stickers onto bottles, or make coffee, or handle customers.

No, I am not a vlogger

I’ve taken to making videos of myself, mostly to get used to hearing myself talk. I think a lot of people don’t like how they sound recorded, and I am one of them. I uploaded my second one already on Facebook, and I am not sharing it here because I dread public access to something so mundane and poor in quality compared to the millions of other videos out there with much more interesting content.

ANYWAY. I started out just using my phone to record the first video I did (and the quality wasn’t too bad in terms of both video and audio), and the reception was actually overwhelming! I mean they’re all my friends but I didn’t expect too many people to sit through 10 minutes of me rambling or actually leave any comments about it. Surprise, surprise!

The second one has more “useful” content in that I talk about a thing I received in the mail that very day. I wasn’t planning on making a new video until maybe a few days after, but the opportunity was too good. Besides, I actually hadn’t thought about what I was going to talk about, anyway.

BUT, I’m not here to talk about the video. I don’t know why I suddenly find it so amusing to record and put together clips and audio. Perhaps it’s a new way to keep me preoccupied and cope in this pandemic. Plus it’s hell week in school now, and I just finished with 2 rounds of presentation. 2 more on Wednesday, then it’s just a lot of grading and getting ready for first semester. It’s pretty crazy how school is becoming (because online learning is not easy, even for us teachers), and it’s nice to have a new outlet where I can temporarily distract myself but exercise some form of creativity at the same time.

I think I’m getting used to hearing myself talk, now I’m not liking how my mouth moves when I do. I find so many things to nitpick about myself that it’s ridiculous.

I’ve been teaching Branding at university for a few years now and will again this intersession semester. Given that we’re now moving towards online learning due to the on-going pandemic and how it’s affected education, us teachers are now tasked to reexamine how we’ve been conducting our classes and adjust given the new platforms we’ll be using. It’s close to impossible for us to meet our classes face-to-face, probably removing valuable human experiences and interactions that can happen only in the classroom, and most of us will now be living behind our screens. It’s a very strange new environment that I’m a bit apprehensive about. But we must proceed. Learning must never stop.

Branding. It’s a word most people are familiar with and have their own ideas about. I ask my students every year what they think it is, and a lot of them will tell me that it’s an identity. They are correct. I’ve worked on several branding projects, not all of which I am proud of because I was, like most students, young and inexperienced. Back when I was just starting to do design professionally, I thought that as long as a brand stuck to the fonts, colors, and imagery prescribed to them by their designers, that was good branding. But ah, my naive young mind. The more I practiced design and the more I was exposed to the world, I learned that branding was so, so much more.

My work as a freelance graphic designer and food photographer (for a time) allowed me to work with several brands. I will admit that looking back on my first few years as a young designer, I could be pretty arrogant. I had stubborn moments where I felt I knew better than my clients and that they should absolutely take my advice or go with my recommendations. But hello, that went against what they were—advice and recommendations. I could say whatever the hell I wanted but they didn’t have to go with it. It was their choice in the end, and what my young self did not realize that my job wasn’t to give them something I think they should use, but to help them tell the stories they wanted to tell through design.

Fast forward to today, in this mess of a year we call 2020, being heavily involved in one particular brand is helping me learn not just about the practice of branding, but how to teach it to my students in the next few months. Branding is all about stories and experiences of human beings. Everything else is beside the point. For a brand to be successful, it needs to connect with humans. It must tell stories that people want to be a part of. More than just having a consistent look or aesthetic. More than getting an overwhelming amount of sales. More than producing content people will like and share and later forget.

Brands come to life not just in the creation of visual identities, but when it builds communities. It’s not just about marketing and sales. It’s about relating to people—eliciting emotions and cultivating trust. People will take care of brands that take care of people. People will stand with brands that stand with them.

Almost 2 months on lockdown, and I think I have more pictures of Ryan with his cat than pictures of us together. We’ve officially spent more time apart than together as a couple thanks to this global pandemic, but I’m glad we’re doing okay and haven’t gone completely insane. Thankfully, we have silly+adorable pets that occasionally star in our video calls, his more than mine.

I looked back on my old posts in this blog and find myself wondering again if I should just delete all the ones that pertained to my last relationship the way I did on my Instagram feed, or at least the ones where I talk about wedding planning and all things related to that. I read through a couple of the entries and wonder how I managed to get over the hurt that came after. From deliriously happy and counting down to a wedding that never happened, to a complete 180 of being depressed and considering ending everything in a quiet part of campus. It was a struggle to say the least, but sitting here now—on lockdown and wondering what time my boyfriend’s cat will finally be able to wake him—I’m glad I managed.

I finished watching the entire run of How I Met Your Mother again for the nth time but skipped the last 5 minutes of the finale. I’ll admit, while largely similar to Friends, I like HIMYM better. The themes were better, there was much less sexism (lol), and the absence of Ross Geller might be one of the best things about it. Towards the end of HIMYM, what really sticks to me was the constant theme of how “things have to fall apart to make way for better things.” And I know that kind of came in much later in the series, it really is true. You can’t keep sticking to or running back to the past because it’s convenient or familiar. (Which is why I hate how they ruined the Barney & Robin dynamic after they developed so nicely as characters.)

Ryan’s on video chat on my phone next to me and he’s playing his usual Call of Duty. Sometimes we’re just like this, on video call but not saying a word and just going about our own business. It might seem strange and sounds like defeating the purpose of being on video call, but in this time of quarantine where we can’t really be with each other especially now that we’re closing in on 3 months into our relationship, it’s all we can really do. And I don’t mind being quiet. I suppose this can be likened to being in the same room and just doing our own thing. While I don’t have the pleasure of basking in the cuteness of his cat who likes to sleep at the foot of his bed, I do love the how comfortable we can be in silence.

I was going through Facebook and came across yet another one of Drei’s shared posts of really pretty houses. I tried picturing me & Ryan in those houses and I got to imagining the kind of home we’d feel most comfortable in.