Random thoughts

Warm Bacolod nights = mahirap matulog.
Unfortunately for me, I've never lived in a Brothers community that had airconditioned bedrooms. For the last few nights, I've kept my bedroom door open so that the cool air from the outside would come in. There has to be a better way of building our houses that'll keep us relatively cooler.

Cheering indeed is life.
I've been going around watching all the cheering practices here in the Integrated School. It's so interesting to see how cheering manages to bring about so much change in the way people behave. My cheering experience started in Grade 5... but let's not get into too much detail since our teachers foisted "Rambo Grade 5" as our theme... I'll talk about that some other time. But if you ask anyone from the Class of 93 to sing our Grade 5 theme song, I'm sure they'll be able to sing more than just a few lines. It was that "memorable". Hay. We've reached a point where nerves are frayed to their finest, thinnest shred and there are still a couple of practice days until the big day arrives. It'll be the first time I actually get to watch the whole contest so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that no one gets too frazzled and that no fights erupt among the different batches... Cheering has that effect on people.

Telling Stories...

Br. Ceci was fond of telling stories. The stories he told were mostly about real people living real lives... messy, riddled with mistakes but still full of hope and humor. I made a promise to myself to make his mission mine... but I still have a long way to go and a lot more stories to collect. So while I do that... here's what I'll do first...

About two months ago, Mrs. Tina Jurado, an active parent in the IS Parents Association, met with me to ask if I could help them out in their story telling project. I said yes and yesterday, due to all sorts of prior engagements, amidst all the meetings and other requirements, I was in the grade school library at around 145pm for my first ever storytelling session.

It was a good first experience, I have to say, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I could still stand a bit more loosening up... you have to unlearn years of trying to act correctly and properly in order to be able to produce all those strange sounds and facial expressions. Then there are the books that insist on using alliteration... Zeb the Zooming Zebra Zip Zip Zipping along the Zoo...

But I guess this is one way for me to pay it forward... not just for the stories that Ceci told us but also for all the stories my father and mother and aunt (Damai) read to me while I was younger and all the other wonderful stories many people in my life have shared with me.

Next Friday, I will return to the library... hopefully, armed with a good book full of fantastic colors, shapes and sounds...

A Most Excellent Wednesday

I look forward to Wednesdays because I don't have to worry about my two Christian Living classes. Two less very major things to worry about. I can focus on trying to get work done in the Vocations Office. (However, that doesn't mean that my task check list for Wednesdays is tons lighter... the list is still daunting and anxiety-inducing.)

This Wednesday was particularly nice because it was back to the Institute of Culinary Arts - De La Salle after several weeks of absence. I dropped by lunchtime to check on the group that was preparing for their grand buffet but they were due to arrive later in the day pa. Though I didn't get to see them prepare I was treated to one of the best lunches I've ever had.

Rachel Ray (Oprah-funded and adrenalin-fueled hyper talk show host) started her TV career with a show that featured good tasting meals cooked in 30 minutes. I had one of the most satisfying pasta experiences in life and all it took to cook it was 3 minutes.

Ibang klase talaga ang powers ni Chef Richard. I realize that good pasta is a good way to remind people how wonderful life really is... then again, the same can be said about Choco Caramel Praline and white Toblerone and a really expensive magazine sold a P75 in Booksale...

We (names withheld) also had a nice conversation after lunch about how strange it was that we all found ourselves working in La Salle. Just like many of the CL teachers in the IS, La Salle was never part of our childhood ambitions. But even if it wasn't, we were led to La Salle found ourselves happily fulfilled... difficult jobs, yes but fulfilling nonetheless.

The ICA Midway Grand Buffet was the nice ending to this most filling and fulfilling day. After several months, the students of the morning class finally had a chance to show off their skills to their parents and friends. All in all, it was a good buffet... some things needed to be improved but I think they did pretty well.

So, thanks again, Chef Richard!

To blog... again...

Expressing myself through words is one of my better talents. If you compare the way I put words together with the way I move, then my first statement would be more than correct. That's how underdeveloped my kinesthetic intelligence is.

Anyway, I haven't been blogging for quite some time and I'm still trying to work out why. But while I do, I guess it's best that I go back to sharing random thoughts with faceless people for the sake of, and I thank my batchmate, Br. Richie, for this term, self-care.

Throwing words into the great sea of information that is the internet can be therapeutic... as long as I am able to catch myself before my therapy starts impinging on other people's dignity and reputation. (That's the morality teacher in me speaking... by the way, I still am quite the rookie when it comes to teaching morality but that is a topic for another day.)

So I will make a pledge to write down a couple of words and send them across the universe. I promise to try to keep it positive although I already foresee a several less-than-positive entries... I will speak about the small miracles that come my way and the many happy accidents that aren't really accidental in hindsight. But I guess I will also have to write about sadness, being overwhelmed and feeling like a failure. I will write about my journey... the fumbling, the stumbling and all the grumbling included.

I will write to find my voice... to make it clearer and more confident. Never mind that I'm not always going to be correct or certain or that I will come across as smart, intelligent or witty... although that's always the goal. :)

Tonight, I begin anew... which is what is cool about being alive... you always have a chance to start over again.

Talaga naman...

Meanwhile, as we were praying and mourning for Cory, our current president was doing this...

Br. Ceci

I don't exactly remember when Br. Ceci came into my life. Sometime after Br. Felix, Br. James and Br. Bernie. [Hopefully, there will a batchmate from Zobel Class of 1993 who can help me out.] You see, we didn't really have too many Brothers growing up in Zobel but Felix and Ceci were OUR Brothers... they became the representatives of a congregation that we didn't really know a lot about. (The only other Brother that figures prominently in my early Zobel memories was Br. Rafe but I think that was because he landed in the football field in a helicopter and the whole school was lined up in the corridors waiting for him like rock band groupies complete with banners and streamers.)

Felix was the Brother of a young student in Zobel. Up until Grade 3 or 4, students would find themselves constantly drawn to his office because he had all sorts of cards and games. Yes, we'd all find ourselves in his office for our birthdays once a year but his office was the domain of the young grade school students.

Ceci was the Brother of the older Zobel students. I remember the girls of our batch going to Br. Ceci because, in him, they had found the person who could tell them about the ups and downs of teenage life. Ceci became the reliable older uncle for many a high school student in Zobel. After an initial outpouring of teenage angst, Ceci would take over and talk one through one's seemingly endless depression.

And boy, did Br. Ceci talk. His life was full of stories of so many different people in so many different places but they were stories that we could all relate to. He was a favorite resource person because he would pluck stories from his databank to suit any group or occasion. He'd talk about athletes, musicians, college students, former students, parents... and, little by little, you began to realize that all these people were, just like you, people he called his friends. And that was a large part of his magic, that he made you feel that you were now part of his world, part of his family and that somehow you would figure in one of his stories someday.

Several years ago, Br. Ceci discovered the magic of digital photography... a piece of modern magic that allowed him to speak in a very different way. If you go through his multiply site broceci.multiply.com, you will see how he found a very different medium to continue his mission of telling people's stories.

I have a hard time thinking of Br. Ceci as dead because I know that, right now, I'm not the only one dealing with this sudden physical separation... that in a special way, Ceci has not left us. We all carry him in our hearts and by we, I mean a whole galaxy of people linked together by the tapestry of stories woven by the great Br. Ceci.

Ceci (and Felix) were my Brothers as a student, my Brothers as an employee and alumnus of Zobel and they were my Brothers as a De La Salle Brother. Their influence in my life has been subtle but constant and I am only beginning to realize how profoundly affected I am by the way they touched the hearts of the people they were given to as blessings.

I often kid that my idol in the Brothers is Ceci because he's managed to dodge the thankless but necessary role as mainstream, hard-core administrator and because he once patrolled the corridors of a La Salle school on his bike (and in shorts) as principal. But, death has this sobering effect, has a way of making us confront things more urgently and I realize that Ceci really is one of my Brother idols... not only because of his free spirit but mainly because he really went out of his way to be with the students. He may not have been the apple of the eye of the more organized and the more serious but he was there for the students. He may have been in a hurry to leave because he had another place to go to but you knew that Ceci was a shared commodity and that his leaving was to fulfill a promise he had made to another Ceci friend; a promise that he made to you too.

One thing I regret is not having a written copy of all the stories that Br. Ceci kept in his head. We used to kid him about writing, about recording his stories and putting them together in a volume (or two or three). I wish we could put all the Ceci stories we have in our possession and try to put them together as a tribute to him.

It really is an end of an era. It is like losing Felix all over again; losing a piece of yourself. Generations upon generations of students from Zobel (and other La Salle schools) could rely upon the memory of having been touched by Brothers like Ceci and Felix. Now, the young have only our memories of these Brothers. And I think it is only but fitting that we keep their stories alive; that the succeeding generations of Lasallians will also know who these Brothers were and why they were so important in our lives.

There were some things that I didn't quite understand or like about Br. Ceci but they are quirks that can be easily overlooked... especially because he was my Brother and he didn't make it hard for me to love him as a Brother.

The last time I was with Ceci was in his car on the way to a big meeting in Green Hills last June 13. I was reeling from the effects of a really bad cough and I was struggling to listen to him talk about the tomorrow that was to be. He was discussing the next day's schedule with Mang Vic, his long time driver and sidekick. It was going to be a typical Ceci day with multiple engagements in many different places. A mass here, a game there, another game here, another meeting there. I think at the back of my head I was asking, "how long can he keep this pace up?"

I thought he could keep it up longer and I was looking forward to celebrating 100 years of Lasallian presence in the Philippines with Br. Ceci annotating the event... me listening to him point out the different personalities and events and giving a short side story about them with a perspective that could only be truly his. But sadly, he has moved on.

Part of me is sad. Sad for myself but I guess also very sad for the hundreds and thousands of people who are still trying to convince themselves that he is really isn't with us physically anymore.

But Ceci would not have wanted us to be sad for too long. If you know him as I know him and I know many of you do, you can probably picture Br. Ceci half-saying and half-laughing, "Wag na kayong umiyak, nandito lang naman ako."

So go to your nearest music store and look for his favorite Pinoy artists, Asin, Bayang Barrios, Joey Ayala, etc. Go out into the street and buy a balut or two, go to your grocery store and buy a bucketful of butong pakwan. It's okay to drink that sugar-filled glass of Coke. Wear a green shirt and shorts and hang a camera around your neck. Look for a handkerchief that will show people how much you love them or a pencil that will symbolize your life here on earth.

Spend time remembering, talking and laughing with the other Ceci friends of your generation. Talk about Ceci. Spread the good news that he is alive in our hearts and that we will keep on telling his stories and that he will never die.

Goodbye, Ceci. See you. Thank you, Bro.

had an interesting day. Not quite sure how I feel about it but interesting nonetheless.

???

Today was a particularly trying day.
(Not because of the Quiapo trip... it actually helped me get a grip on how I was feeling.)

I won't go into details but allow me to vent a bit and shout out to the universe my frustration... ... :-P ...
(There, I'm done... for now...)

I'm dealing with my current state of yuckiness far better that I have in the past. Metaphorically, before it would've been equivalent to a major migraine (the kind that send people on their backs, useless for days). Now, I'm still bothered but I think I can think my way through this.

Spent a bit of time in the Quiapo Church, asking God for help in dealing with this current state of emotional dis-ease.

I need a dose of Mitford.