Cool minds. My Intro to Journ class in Ateneo.

Last year was a learning experience for me in teaching. That sounds funny, right?

I always said that as much as my students will learn from me so will I learn from them. And I learned a whole lot in managing and teaching a class of students.

This year, classes are better structured that are designed to make them even more fun. I instituted a Quick Write Challenge (ala Top Chef’s Quickfire Challenge) where we get to see the students’ spontaneous creativity and writing skills. We’ve done three so far and think they’ve loved everyone of them. We still have our group work that is designed to make them work with other people and to make new friends. And in our fourth session together, I’d say that it is a smashing success.

Today’s lesson was on “Broadcast Journalism” and with my limited experience, I needed help from former GMA-7 (and Atenean) James Velasquez and TV5 reporter and TV host Chiqui Roa Puno (whose brother is one of my best friends in Ateneo). It was a fantastic class.

For their Quick Write Challenge, they had to pretend that they were reporting a massive flood ala what hit Manila during Typhoon Ondoy. The playacting was simply awesome!

I think my students are seeing that there are things that they can do. Take for example, Kirk Long. Like Emman Monfort before him, he can write. And write them really well, I say. Every week, I’d have to see he impresses me. And there are others too.

I’ve had bad experiences with professors and I always wondered why I had to go through them. They never encouraged me and instead made me fear them and not want to learn. There’s another way of looking at it and its being bold and proving one’s self. The thing is everyone has a different character make up. I the me of today was in school, being more confident, I’d do a whole lot better.

I can honestly say that I am looking forward to class in order to teach and to learn from my students. 

Flashpoint. It's all new... 'til the next reboot.

Having read and collected comics books for most of my life, I can actually say, "I've seen it all." And when I say that, I'm quite unhappy with all these reboots and revisionist histories of characters from Marvel and DC. The latter seems to be more guilty with this as they cannot seem to get it right. Convoluted history aside, that really smacks of the lack of vision and direction. What happens is do good stuff then render it invalid by having the next creative team do an updated version. What gives? 

And then the next hot creative genius after Geoff Johns will come up with a means to undo Flashpoint or we'll see a Flashpoint Crisis or V.2 five years from now. Marv Wolfman left a means for the Barry Allen Flash to return after Crisis On Infinite Earths and we've seen Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis (I thought we'd see Crisis XX). And now he's a catalyst for Flashpoint. Hasn't Barry Allen learned anything at all? 

I bought the Flashpoint series and the first few issues of the new 52 Universe of DC. There's some good stuff here and there only because they're starting supposedly from scratch. But really. There's nothing that jumps out and makes you go, "Holy, Eurkea Moment, Batman!" Whatever happened to good storytelling without having to resort to reboots?

The pull list November 7-12

Stormwatch #3

Green Lantern #3
Flashpoint Hardcover

Point One #1

Fear Itself 7.1 Captain America

Fear Itself 7.2 Thor

Avenging Spider-Man #1

Uncanny X-Men #1

Of all the titles this week, the one I looked most forward to was Uncanny X-Men. I have bee a fan of Marvel's mutant team since the days of Roy Thomas and Neal Adams. I have every comic until four years ago when I stopped. Too many teams, too many characters, and too many gimmicks forced me to stop (not to mention the steep prices). I tried to jump in every now and then but I felt lost. With Schism, I gave it a go. One last chance to see if I'd follow what was once my favorite comic book. So far it has held my interest. The two teams of X-Men (nothing new since the days of the blue and gold teams) have some interesting rosters that should make for interesting stories. I will give it until the first two story arcs before I make the decision to continue or stop. But the first issues of Wolverine and the X-Men and the Uncanny X-Men have been interesting. And that's the best thing that I can say about this franchise in a long time.

Drawing my dog.

Just doodling. Miss drawing and painting. Something I did extensively as a kid. My skills at that have atrophied and I'm trying to take a new stab at it.

Stepping off the fast lane. Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's Daytripper and what it means to me.

"If you travel too fast all you're gonna see is a blur and you'll never really meet anyone interesting."

At a time when I have been thinking of where I am going and what I am doing -- Is this that mid-life crisis people talk about because I am not yet there -- this book comes at the perfect time. I wrote about some of that in IN MY OWN WRITE that is somewhere below this post. I first saw Gabriel Ba's work in The Umbrella Academy with Gerard Way. I thought it was a great piece of work on a different slant on the superhero genre. 


I have become very discriminating in my reading fare. I can never tell what I'll enjoy today from tomorrow. What I have been engrossed with at the moment is Andre Agassi's exceptional memoir Open and Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba's intoxicating Daytripper.

Here's the synopsis on Daytripper and why it moves me so: 

DAYTRIPPER follows the life of one man, Bras de Olivias Dominguez. Every chapter features an important period in Bras’ life in exotic Brazil, and each story ends the same way: with his death. And then, the following story starts up at a different point in his life, oblivious to his death in the previous issue – and then also ends with him dying again. In every chapter, Bras dies at different moments in his life, as the story follows him through his entire existence – one filled with possibilities of happiness and sorrow, good and bad, love and loneliness. Each issue rediscovers the many varieties of daily life, in a story about living life to its fullest – because any of us can die at any moment.

Daytripper has gotten ahold of my senses and in the manner that films like Garden State, 500 Days of Summer, or One Day have on me. I love the quirkiness yet so poignant for the simplicity and realism. It's something that speaks to me and understands me.  

Reading Daytripper is like watching a movie that you just watched. I read it thrice over as soon as I purchased it. There's so much -- the gorgeous and lovely art that transports me to Brazil where I can smell the air and walk its exotic streets. The fabulous writing. The characters. You know you're hooked when you feel like you're privy to your best friend's secret and you care and feel his pain. I can already see this being adapted into a film and it is the right thing to do.

The graphic novel comes to me at a time when I am reevaluating a lot of things going on in my life. There's so much that I do not have control over. There are times when I am clearly unhappy with the way things are going but I just have to suck things up. The one thing that I miss the most about living in New York is looking at the world through different eyes. I have been deluged with work and clearly it has gotten the better of me and forced me to forget the tenets that I teach to my students. At times, I have become jaded and bitter about perceived injustices and frustrations. Daytripper through its characters is about second or third chances. Four chances even. It's about seizing the moment. Taking the opportunities that come one's way before they're gone or life throws a curve ball at you. Maybe nothing is an accident because life is designed for people to face certain things. It's how one grasps the moment. And I should thanks Messers Moon and Ba for reminding me of how life is so precious and golden. The book provides so many parallelisms that I can feel it speak to me.

Now pardon me, I have a book to re-read.

Tuesday sunset. Ateneo de Manila University.

Sunset Tuesday November 1, 2011. I snapped the pic just as my youngest son and I wrapped up our walk around the Ateneo de Manila campus. I have always been one to sit back and enjoy the sunset. Walking always provides a time for introspection and reflection. Or I make use of the time to seek inspiration for what I need to write or create. Today was time well spent.