Politics of Family

I really can't imagine myself famous someday talking about the real deal of politics, except for random conversation, of course, if they asked my opinion regarding anything close to it. But if that topic simply pops into a discussion, I shall shift gears and shall take some other turns away from it, in a polite manner, another of course. I am sure ever since that I have less interest on the rather dirty and squeamish world of politics. I am afraid to dwell on it though I think it's a good avenue to reach out to many people. Then again, on the back of my head, I can't see myself as a mayor, not even an SK chairman. Besides, there are other avenues such as charity works and community development services where I can help others, and often times, I don't need to invest too much here except for my time and effort.

I know one student in school who dreams to be on the presidential seat. I have nothing against him, in fact, I wish him luck and I hope he does not lose his mind trying to rebuild our poor dilapidated country. But what I was wondering, what is it in politics that pulled his brilliant and deep mind into it. At this point he could have guessed that he's the one I'm talking about but as I've said I don't want to deal with, though sometimes, I question, not this particular student, but those who make politics a lifestyle and a business. So instead, I'd talk about another one, still connected to the term politics on its literal sense, but this time, the politics of family.

I suppose like in our country or any other smaller units or organizations under its canopy, there is a system on-going inside our homes. Children follow their parents and the rules set by parents. Younger siblings, I'm talking about the good ones, follow their older siblings because the latter's older age gives them that privilege. And a nanny, if there's one at home and members of the family treat her as someone already indifferent to them, follows everyone and everything set by all.

I thought all along that smaller units are easier to handle since you deal with fewer people, and to mention that you are family: everyone has to love each other no matter what. I know problems exist because they're part of the deal, the risk when we, or our parents, decided to gamble for our lives. I thought we knew how to self-heal when our family gets wounded, that time is all we ever needed. But with what I'm seeing now, it's quite different from what I imagined. Likened to the real world of politics, our minds our corrupted by viruses that only those infected by them can destroy them.

This column means so much to me now because it's tone is becoming more personal.. But anyway, no medicine can cure something especially if the only solution to the problem is the problem itself. Besides, unlike in real politics where members of the house can sue someone anytime they want, sometimes even try to murder that particular person in secret when something they don't feel was directed against them, as much as possible, we don't want to see someone in our clan rotting in jail, and especially, the system inside our houses is rather lenient. Seldom do we not let something really illegal committed by our parents or siblings pass us, very seldom, in fact. Take for instance those cases of assaulted minors and battered women. When authorities interview them for archival-use, they usually report that these physical and sexual harms have been done repeatedly or in series, more often than not. Only this time they confess such abuses because all along, they have been bearing the pain brought by the family that they don't want to, and must not, leave, or eventually hurt in the future. But I'd be a hypocrite if I'd stick up for the idea that only because they're family, you won't teach them a lesson. That would be sheer selfishness to myself.

Nevertheless, I don't want to brand a family, especially my own family, dirty, because no family is and would be such. Dysfunctionality, disorganization and usual misunderstandings never make one dirty. Family is love. And love mean trust and enduring pain, in certain extents, of course. The politics of family includes the use of the heart compared to the politics of the world that uses more of the mind.

My family has its own problems, and, truth absolutely hurts, so do yours. But whether how minor or major these problems can be, whether fixing your parents' rather rough marriage, having or actually being a black sheep in your family, or as simple as questioning the differences of allowance among siblings, I am sure that if you're as one, and you're willing to change something that is wrong with you, nothing can break your bond, even the most difficult one.

If in any case I wasn't able to keep up with your understanding of what I suggested to be politics of the family in this column, I sincerely apologize. Perhaps the lack of some ideologies and exposure, and personal interest that is a high possibility, to the vast arena of this particular field in social sciences, contributed largely to the failure of my intent to explain the topic further and more vividly. Also, probably, only I know, the topic might have been just plainly given and spoken in a general sense as "politics of family" to hide a "possible" agenda that I only wanted to make an avenue where my personal sentiments regarding my kin can park for a while or so. IDK. Thanks for reading anyway. :))

-- to my readers, this blog post might be my column in the broadsheet issue of The Angelenean Pioneer. Thank you again for reading..

Kids VS. Adults: Imagination-wise

Sometimes, you weigh things, but in the long run,
it doesn't actually count..

I don't agree with the answer my classmate in my creative writing class gave earlier to the question raised by my, yet again, very composed and quite sarcastic professor, why are the youth more imaginative than adults. He said that young people tend to become more playful with their minds because they have more time. Hmmm! My great professor then immediately agreed after that student rested on his seat. Well, okay, I agree, but not completely because..

(DISCLAIMER: I have nothing against my classmate and/or my professor.)

..my classmate's answer only suggested that adults are too busy to imagine stuff. Yeah right.. If I know, they can imagine more with less time. I primarily do not mean to put adults in good light here but what I'm trying to say is that, been wanting to say this even earlier in our not-so-lively discussion but my teacher continued to her speech after just one response from this particular classmate, how more accommodating can that be (Guess I'm equally sarcastic. Haha), majority of the young generation know less; hence, their extent for possibilities in different aspects of life is relatively higher or wider than adults who, in the longer course of their lives, have actually affirmed or nullified the ideas which they have imagined before or, they have learned something else which might not have entered their minds before, consequently, making their "areas to imagine of" smaller. Gosh, I hope I had this theory of mine clearly received by your understanding.

Anyway, I suppose, regardless of era a certain person lives in or cares to adhere by, may it be prehistoric, laid-back, modern or still yet to come, one can imagine freely any time he wants to and how frequent he wants it to happen. I would not mind if he does it on a daily basis or while he's at work. What I'm interested about is how these imaginings can contribute, when turned into reality or made into a concrete manifestation just to look real, to the development and well-being of not only that person, but also the community where he lives and where the imaginings mostly took place, and eventually, the world.

Then again, I may not be absolutely right, but one can only imagine..

10.6.09: Kwentong Bard-ero

BLOG 100.GOODpm dudes!

You might be wondering why i started blogging. Well, aside from the fact that we're required to post articles for our Communication Theory class, dati pa'y pangarap ku na magkaroon ng sariling blog na aking maipagmamalaki kaninu man. Even before, i really planned of having my own blog and be able to maintain it with the freshest ideas every molecule in me could share to anyone.
Tila ba blog ang aking shock-absorber sa kahit anu pang uri ng panahon ako naroroon o anumang uri ng kasiyahan o kalungkutan ang aking nararanasan. Diba kasi masarap ang may nakikinig sau? lalu na pag depressed.

Tanging dasal ku lang na wag lang sana tumaas ang aming electric bill dahil sa aking matagal na pagbabad sa computer. Naku, kung hindi ay patay ako sa mga tao dito! c:

At isa pa, sana wag na dumagdag ang aking long exposure sa computer sa pagkalabo ng aking paningin. Ayokong dumating sa puntong hindi lang aapat ang aking mata. I don't wanna be blind especially 4 love. haha! ang CHEEZYYYYYYYYYYY!

Yup, cheezy as it may seem. many people are blind when it comes to love. minsan nasa tabi mo na, hindi mu pa mafeel. minsan kaharap mu na, my hinahanap ka pang iba. minsan hawak mu na ang kamay nia, naku, team building pala -- ur just following rules! c:

BUT WHO's TO BLAME??

Nasa tabi mu nga, hindi naman ikaw ang tinitignan. minsan kaharap mu na, hindi ka niya nakikita, preoccupied pa. Minsan hawak mu na, ang alin? kamay lang niya un. its not one's heart you're dealing with. yan ang mahirap sa buhay. andaming kailangang cues na intindihin. minsan hindi mo gets. madalas naman nagoover-analyze ka. kaya nga lalung nagiging kumplikado and buhay dito sa mundo. hndi malaman halos ng lahat kung saan step na sila. ang iba nasa step2 gustong magstep10 kagad. ang iba step12 na nga, babalik pa sa step1. ang iba samal, ang iba, ang bugal. pero masisisi mu ba sila?

Yan din ang problemo sa mundo. hindi mo alam kung kaninu icoconfront ang problema because all of us is a victim. victim na nga, isusupress mu pa ba? wag ganun. sa tingin ko, when sum1 is down, uplift him or her. sinu pa bang tutulong sa iba kung hindi tayo. kung may nagawa man silang hindi maganda sa kapwa nila, maybe they have reasons for it. and besides, they still have a big big amount to pay.

O, BALIK TAU SA LOVE.

Panu kung duling siya? Aus lamang. at least dalawa ka sa paningin niya. diba nga, blessed are the crosse-eyed for they will see God twice. hehe! ikaw na bahalang humanap ng koneksyon. basta ang alam ko, in one way or another, may maituturo sayo ang kalokohan ng ibang tao na hindi mo namamalayang nakatulong na pala sau. c: panu kung wala nang nakikita kungdi ikaw? i remember one friend telling me about her suitor that whenever this guy sees her, he says he's almost like in paradise . And he tells this to my friend while singing the song from the famous korean hit BOF. and what did i tell my friend? sabi ko, "anak, pagupit ka na kasi. ang haba na ng buhok mo." and we all went laughing as we await tor that ordinary school day to darken.

Parang mahaba na ata ang aking unang blog. Siguro na enganyo lang talaga akong magsulat ngayon. Sana hindi ako maningas-kugon, siguro naman, kung mahal mo ang ginagawa mo, hindi mo hahayaang pagsawaan mo ito at eventually leave it hanging anywhere db? siguro, mahal at tiyaga lang to anything we're passionate about. keep that passion burning. who would know, it might bring you to places you in your wildest dreams have never thought of going.

GTG. c:

MY FINAL EXAMS TOMORROW. wish me luck! GOD BLESS US ALL.

posted by ryan marimla at 11:15 pm 0 comments 

-- i also found out that I've been a member of blogspot since November 2008. i just realized that i was really a procrastinator. haha Anyway, while i was reading my first-ever post, i was smiling because i thought that i was really funny and cheezy. back then i was a sophomore and "bakit ganyan mga naiisip ko?" haha this blog is a re-post and i'd want to share with you how much of my innocence have changed after just a year or so. be the judge. well, i'm still innocent. :)) but not as like as before. feeling ko freer na ako and stronger today. I am more open and exposed at the same time to many things.. And another thing, i was surprised that i did not see any typographical error. oc na talaga ako noon pa man. hehe sana makatulong pagka-oc ku sa darating na atspar in my copyreading and headline writing event. i don't want to end this blog with what i've noticed to be a cliche, "parang napahaba na ata ang blog na ito. sige eto na muna for now." wala lang, napansin ku lang sa mga nabasa kong mga blogs. heto, para astig, bigla nalang magtatapos ang blog. parang ganito.. ..END.

I am not ambitious. But I just bought my own SB

Have you ever wondered how much will it cost you to have a franchise of SB? Especially if you're an SB afficionado, or just a die-hard fan probably, I am  quite sure that you must have thought of this great and rather ambitious dream at least once during your many stays at the coffee store.


Well, as for me, since I was that rich enough, I bought SB this afternoon for only P20.00. I am this rich or a little richer perhaps. Haha You might think that I've gone mad already, but seriously, I just did. You can ask my friends. Oh, they were all glad to see me buy SB. Except that SB actually meant "Stress Ball" instead of your "usual endearment" for Starbucks. :)) I know it's quite misleading but today, at least for this one post, SB means, stress ball.

Say with SB.

This morning was rather shivering. Not because of early mists and dewdrops while I was smoothly coasting to school, did not catch colds either along the rocky road, but of something else, a more eerie one I suppose. So I took some hundreds of steps to shake the nasty feeling off so I can return to the room calm and civil--and I was successful.


To make the long story short, I needed to relieve myself from this distress. I could have suffered heart attack any moment during that time. Exaggeration yet possible! But life must go on.. I cannot annihilate myself through intense self-explosion. And I shall spare that human's or humans' life/lives since I have not verified anything. My biases might seem true but they are not unless others confirm them to be so. I must be fair. I must. I am good; that, I would like to believe. So I just prayed for everything at Carmelite. Simply EVERYTHING. My studies, friends and family.. After church, that was when I bought my own SB. It was accident, really. I was looking for a health-related magazine which I never found on any of their mags shelves. Guess copies were sold out. The next thing I saw was the SB. I felt it on my hands first then things went rushing. Right then and there, I just looked the other side, since the cashier was so close to me that I did not have to make a move, got my thin black wallet out, plucked that folded P20-bill from the array of papers, and bought SB. That was the story. See, I am not ambitious.. Then I went to a pizzeria at Balibago and grabbed two of their other full meals. I became so happy after my feast.

Hungry??!! :))

Say and Chan look good together. :))

The photoshoot. Thanks to me. :))

Reng tigidig.. :))

Say enjoying her pastry. OBVIOUSLY. :))

Anyway, I just got home from SB yet again. The endearment now, okay? I was with my cousin Say, she has never missed any of our SB-dates, and, drum roll please, my other cousin, Chan, the one I spilled in my previous post to be the most fox-like, elusive one of all my visitors. She rarely, RARELY, goes home for the weekends. I sometimes think that she's actually locked inside a dungeon far, far away. And whenever she stays here at our house in Salapungan, her time even is very limited. The sorceress is so powerful.. Haha Nevertheless, I enjoyed her company, though she threw my SB (The ball now. Don't get confused.) straight to my face earlier, which quite hurt a bit. But all is well now. I even treated her quail eggs, eight pieces of them worth P20.00, before we went home. Well, you see, I realized that I just have started a P20-bill-out trend. Haha Perhaps that is the highest amount I can afford to give away. Huhu I hope to be super wealthy in the future. So I can buy them many quail eggs, maybe hundreds of them, oops, what is that foul smell? Haha Or I'd treat them many SBs. Tignan ku lang kung hindi sila magmukhang zombies. Haha Meanwhile, I was thankful that I bought a stress ball. With so much attachment to it, I even brought it with me in our date at Starbucks. :))

Cold Cash to Warm Hearts and Souls

Here I am again from SB. I realized that I have been lavishly existing for the last two to three days. I felt my pocket becoming lighter and lighter every 24 hours. Guilt is starting to consume me. But I will never let it do its thing. I became happy and contented. Breads will come back after all. Just one problem. IDK when. But all is still good. :))

I went there this morning maybe minutes before lunch and guess where have I gone this late evening, from there too, but now with my younger sister Kat and ever dearest cousin Say. Happy me! I would not sleep alone today and perhaps tomorrow too. My other cousin, Chan, the most elusive of the three, was not home that time and missed the fun, as usual.

Anyway, I already contracted, if such word exists, my cousin and sister to help me claim that SB 2011 Planner. I told them, or "required" them if they bitterly prefer that term, to save some of their weekly allowance enough to buy them a beverage at SB during our SB-date every weekend. Because I cannot treat them every time we go to SB. I'd be broke.. T.T Meanwhile, I started collecting stickers just today but I have no plans of missing the promo. Thank God that me and my friends still have more than a month to complete all 17 stickers. That's quite a fortune, at least for a poor kiddo like me. Haha

My sister Kat and my cousin Say

I had so much fun talking to my visitors, Kat and Say. Visitors because they usually spend their weekdays over their house in Xevera to attend their classes and they do come here in our old house in Salapungan very seldom. The conversation with them was surprisingly funny. I realized that both of them are coming into age. Kat is 13 while Say is turning 12 this December. Well, time flies so fast. Especially for girls: maturation is faster. In no time, I'd see them as young women. By that time, I am of older age. I will miss our childhood and adolescent moments. I am such a sentimental man. :))

Say, megtakap ka pa? :))

Mimingat kareng arung.. :))

Spend for your family because more often than not, in your get-togethers, it requires more than your time and effort.  But always think that wealth is not the only answer. Besides, your gatherings does not have to be extravagant. Just right.. But determining "just right" largely depends on you. Nevertheless, the more important thing is that you spent time together. It may never happen again skeptically. But I'm sure you'd be thankful still in the end that you have done it even just once or twice. Happy thoughts are still there to be remembered. :))

Primer: The First Coating on My Creative Writing Professor

I came at about 15 minutes pass 1:00 p.m. and my professor never let my being late during THE first day of our class pass her. My impression of her is that she was rather stiff or just very composed, either of the two is applicable, or bluntly, perfect fit actually. She looked calm yet intimidating from afar. I can't see her clearly since I forgot my eyeglasses at home. She speaks articulately yet audibly authoritative. IDK her. Today is the first time I ever saw her in school. Or perhaps I've just forgotten that we've met along the corridors or else where. Anyway, I find her dull, blank and scary at first stare. And now that I'd be spending the next hundred days of my college life with her, to think though that I love this writing course, describing what I feel right now as scared is an understatement.

You won't get 97. She said this before she dismissed us because according to her our class was too creative. Yeah right.. Our professor tried to find out how creative was the class. So photocopies wherein two big pictures aligned horizontally were issued to us. The task was to say whatever you think the pictures might entail. Some of my classmates gave unimaginable answers. Some stated what seems very obvious. One from the class asked our prof if the task was to describe but she said it wasn't. But when she said the "right" answers, they were simple and very  ordinary:just depicting what were drawn. Nothing new and great. Nothing amusing about the answers. Like saying, "Aaahhh.. Okay. Yun lang pala."

From this hour, until our next meeting probably, I am not getting her. Maybe because nothing interesting exuded from her strong presence. I felt her. But the feeling I caught is the one you'd not want to feel ever again as a student that is excited to do fiction writing. Still, I guess, the feeling is mutual for her. She was open about her high expectation from us Communication majors, and during the discussion, she said she wasn't getting any. That hurt but I thought she spoke to soon. There are many promising writers in my class I believe. Breaking their hearts at this early portion of the semester would not help. I expect our professor to be considerate, of course, at a certain extent. I hope she gives what is due to us. And personally, expect that I won't take my Creative Writing course for granted.

I've just done my personal primer on one of my professors. I expect that this becomes a masterpiece. With the right symmetry and the presence of all the other elements I need, it is possible. And I'm actually working on the other elements. But I still need all the help she and my classmates, or others, can extend.

Reality Bites 101

"Kahit gaano mo kagustong kumawala sa iyong nakaraan at iyong pinagmulan, babalik at babalik ka din doon. Kung hindi ka man pumaroon muli, animo'y kambal mu padin itong iyong kasaysayan saan mang pagtungo mo dahil hindi ka nito lulubayan. Hawak-kamay kung kayo'y sundo. Posas naman ang katapat ng iyo kung pasakit ang naging pamamalakad mo o naging paglakad sa iyo. Kahit anu pa man, matutong matuto mula sa iyong karanasan."

-- quote inspired from Kayla (ANTM Cycle 15) who confessed in one episode that she was sexually assaulted for a year-and-a-half when she was just 11. The last thing she wanted to do was to tell any soul about this, even to her mother. But she had to tell the truth to the creative director of the program when her attention was called since she was obviously uncomfortable at the set. The task was to shoot a commercial for a particular product and the models were required to make intimate gestures with a man towards the end of the act. This absolutely refreshed the awful experience Kayla had back in the days and made her horrified. 

I commend what the director said to Kayla.

He said though the experience might be hurtful and seemingly traumatic, she has to deal with it. Never let that thing of the past stop her from booking those jobs because if she does, she will suffer the rest of her life.