Litfili Entry 4

A. Document

The short story of document practically tells a story about one man who endlessly goes by his daily routine lifestyle but noticing a young woman who happens to be a student of the school where he teaches often borrowing his PC. Of course he doesn’t mind but make no mistake as the story portrays him not having affections or any involvement despite all the suspicions of his neighbors.

How ever the story takes a turn of events when he begins wondering and guessing what the filenames of her documents are then suddenly his curiosity goes overboard compelling him to read the especially “marked” document. It contains an essay about her wishes of leaving then for some reason it somehow bothers him as if he had some feelings for this woman yet he tends to suppress it confusing the reader whether he has feelings for her or not.

Nominally this guy is sort of the sneaky type since we don’t know his intentions of even bothering to read that document. We couldn’t say for sure he had feelings for her since after all he is living quite a dull life in the everyday “work, eat, sleep” routine and its possible that he had nothing else better to do. But then again the possibility of him having feelings cannot also be easily ruled out. Oh I know many female readers may think or even wonder is this how “torpe” guys think? Well now if you were to ask me lets not be hasty to judge their kind shall we? I mean I also want to ask a question also on why women these days prefer boastful & arrogant bastards compared to shy but kind men? Heck these men normally aren’t even players yet more women prefer the player types. I guess the saying goes true when Bill Maher said, “Women cannot complain until they improve their taste in men”.

B. Games

Ah yes the finest example of the modern relationships where the story revolves around two players where in the woman has multiple personalities on the phone and the guy has other possible secret relationships outside his current one.

Believe it or not this sort of thing where the girl character actually makes different voices on the phone happens a lot these days especially with the rampant text messages that are send around the nation everyday. Various reasons also come afloat with this as it can range from finding insights within other’s relationships to the lowest form of finding “text mates”.

But that is also not the point since it is also about the couple’s attitude toward each other. Now she gets offended when she accidentally finds out her boyfriend was actually expecting another woman when she used a name that goes by her boyfriend’s other fling. Strange she took the nerve to get angry when she herself isn’t really clean when it comes to these sorts of mind games. Hey after I guess that’s why it’s titled games. It what most couples today do to each other which is why short term relationships happen much more than long ones these days. That’s also the reason why so many naive youngsters exist these days.

Nick Joaquin's Summer Solstace (Tatarin)

I saw this movie way back in 2001 during some Manila filmfest. Anyway I was surprised when i saw this since I thought the MTRCB allowed this to slip by since it contains well... countless amounts of explicit content. And how ignorant of me not to even know who Nick Joaquin was at that time. Anyway soon after i saw the movie my mom explained to me once what it was about but I still didn't get it since she said its about "women ruling the world for 3 days".

Uh excuse me?!! ok I know many of you are gonna flame me, curse me, bash me, maul me or other brutal fantasies you guys might have BUT I'M SORRY I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW SEXUAL ZEALOTS BECOME RULERS FOR 3 DAYS!!! FTW!!!

Countless times I wonder how did this even make it to our cultural society when I as a Filipino (though not pure) could not even grasp its concept no matter what. I know I watched it carefully (including the exotic stuff of course) set in the 1900's during the American regime much of Filipino cultures we're under patriarchal influence therefore ownership of women were rampant. So if this is a story depicting how women get equal I just cannot grasp it.

Litfili entry 2

Stories covered this week were "the Mats" and "Divide by Two" by Francisco Arcellana.

OK to be honest I was neither amazed or bored with these as part of me wanted to know if Filipinos during the pre-war era were of the sort but then again I come to constant realizations that these traits happens to nearly everyone so i guess the era has practically nothing to do with this. But also I do not think this only applies to Filipinos cause any good father in the world would provide for the entire family until a certain point. I do not see how this behavior was only related to Filipinos in the class discussion. Any Dad in the world misses their family no matter what lest they the fathers just accidentally impregnated someone they don't know and has a serious lack of moral's then they'd care less.

Now for the story of "Divide by Two" it was incredibly difficult for me to relate lest write about it since Im such a noob when it comes to relationships. Yes I know many out there will not believe a 25 year old who claims never had one since birth, well I gotta tell you folks now! BELIEVE IT! And believe me when I say I don't really know what my thoughts are about that. And believe me it is also not because Im lazy to do blogs as most of you guys can see. Regardless one thing about that story though is it really shows how complex being in a relationship is and yes at some point I begin thinking when I'll find the woman I like but normally reality strikes me to practically accept I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility as I'm already having enough trouble looking after my own. And frankly high context communication though maybe good at some point, these days it just creates more elitists who practically pose to be smarter and emotionally strong like they can read minds but instead become useless folk. Its normally taken even the wrong way by most and these people who promote higher context use it against others instead of helping them.

Kinda explains why break-ups happen much more often doesn't it? Nearly any smart-ass is trying to show who's got the guts but in the end become nothing more than stuck-ups which is why in the end of the story they even had no idea of what they were fighting for.:D

Litfili entry 1

Note this blog entry is partially my thoughts on Filipino literature and is also required for my university so bare with me.

The 1st two stories we read which were "My Father Goes To Court" and "How My Brother Leon Brought Home A Wife". Now for my opinion. There isn't much to think about here since much of Filipino's are still at this state despite the massive westernization going on in the country. Heck there's even a massive political crisis on going in the country yet some Filipino families (especially those in the province) could ignore the crisis and go on with their lives and make the most out of it. I guess like the saying being simple has its prize it truly applies to rural folk.

Notice how most Filipinos in the city (especially the ones who came from the United States) become spoiled and are never content with everything surrounding them. In-fact they begin acting like they are one of them and normally even forget to take a good look in the mirror to see if they are looking at an "American". Take note of the quotation marks I placed on the word American.

Sadly this has been a trait even during colonial times (as represented in the stories set in the early 1900's till the end of World War II) where many of our fellow countrymen will kiss ass to foreign powers in order to gain the upper hand against fellow countrymen. Discrimination even gradually turns rampant as most elitists badger most of the witless and the oppressed who are highly deprived of education due to extreme poverty. Yet funny thing is despite all this there is still a part of them that values family unlike most westerners. Filipino parents are far more caring despite the culture change or Americanization of the most Filipinos.