JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Do you remember how you learned about sex and reproduction? I don’t recall my parents ever giving me the talk. I think I saw some cusswords etched on a school desk, asked around for definitions, and extrapolated the rest.

In the fourth grade or so we were shown an educational film about cells, mitosis, embryos, but there was no explanation of how the necessary cells were delivered to the mother’s body, etc.

Your challenge this week: In 500 words or less, explain where babies come from. Imagine that your audience is a four-year-old child.

Post your answers in Comments. The deadline is at 11.59 pm on Saturday, 22 May 2010. The reader who submits the best answer will receive these:

Three very good Young Adult novels, as opposed to the dreck that all the tweens are reading. (More distressing: 30+ year-old women “see themselves” in the Twilight books. Yikes!) The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, plus my advance reader’s copy (Collectible!) of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.

Start explaining. The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by the wonderful people of National Bookstore.

Inheriting the Rivers of her Past. Acrylic & Charcoal on Canvas, 36 x 48 inches

The Game of the Labyrinthine Mind. Acrylic & Charcoal on Canvas, 36 x 48 inches

The Gene Pool Recorders & The Self Annointed Seers. Acrylic & Charcoal on Canvas, 36 x 48 inches

Now on view at Tala Gallery, 100 Scout De Guia St corner Tomas Morato, Quezon City. For those who have seen his profile in the Fookien Times Yearbook, Jason says he will be fully-clothed. Unless he isn’t.

A flier from the Echostore. (Typo!)

I got the bag on the top row, left. I call it Raffia Nadal.

The Prince of Persia movie opens next Thursday, May 27.

This is what Jake Gyllenhaal’s character is wearing. Do you like it? Can you do better?

Design a costume for Jake and email the drawing to my cat, Urban.Matthias@gmail.com. By entering this contest you swear that the costume is of your own design and not ripped off from your 10-year-old videogame-addicted nephew. Entries will be posted daily.

Deadline: Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 12 noon. Two winners will receive this:

A watch that stops time. Riiiiight.

From Lucban we went to Tiaong to visit the showroom and workshop of the renowned ceramics artist Ugu Bigyan.

Ugu’s workshop produces beautiful dinnerware and decorative pieces. You see them in fine hotels and restaurants.

They don’t have a retail outlet in Metro Manila so if you want to see the assortment of dishes, cups, wind chimes, etc available you have to go to Tiaong. Make it a day trip; you can arrange for lunch to be served in the garden.

While my companions went crazy over the houseware I wandered into one of the Balinese-style huts and found. . .accessories! Wire and stone jewelry designed by Ugu’s nephew, Kim Palacol.

They’re weird, they’re me.

We also took a tour of the potter’s house. Look, Noel: terra cotta tiles.

This is the very organized workshop where the ceramics are fired.

And these are the family dogs, Mini Pinschers. I also noticed a lot of motorcycles.

Ugu Bigyan’s pottery shop is in Lusacan, Tiaong, Quezon. Telephone (042)545.9144; email ugubigyan@yahoo.com.

The annual Pahiyas in Lucban, Quezon! So many people on the street, I thought we were going to overthrow someone.

Details later, I’m going to pass out.

* * * * *

I was in Lucena City in Quezon on Friday for the launch of My City, My SM at their mall. The launch was timed for the Pasayahan festival in Lucena and the Pahiyas in Lucban, both of them honoring San Isidro Labrador. The endorsers were hair and make-up entrepreneur James Cooper, and businesswoman Nova Veluz of Buddy’s restaurants. The next day we attended the famed Pahiyas in Lucban.

Some of my friends had been to Pahiyas and they warned me, “Traffic! Crowds! Traffic! Crowds!” We were prepared: we went early, and left just before lunch. Any later and we would’ve been stuck. Pahiyas is an explosion in a paint factory: the townspeople decorate their houses with fruit, flowers, agricultural motifs, and prizes are given for the best designs. One house had banana trees and a chicken out front—I don’t know if the chicken was part of the design concept, or if it just liked the view from its high perch.

Tourists from all over the country, balikbayans, and foreigners cram the streets to gawk at the houses and take photos. If you’re really curious, you can enter the houses and enjoy the cold drinks and snacks laid out by the residents. Ms Veluz had invited us to see their house (Photos 2,3,and 4 above), which had the most elaborate ornamentation—all it needed were animatronic saints. Or holograms broadcasting from the election counting centers. (By the way, Buddy’s is opening a branch on Timog Avenue in QC soon.) Clearly the people of Lucban take the festival very seriously.

Lucban is up in the mountains and usually cool; between the record summer temperatures and the crowd density it was quite warm (but still not as oven-like as Metro Manila). Almost everyone was wearing a straw hat in some wild color combination. The festival is meant to give thanks for a bountiful harvest, but I think Filipino fiestas are largely an excuse (as if we needed one) to get together with family, friends, and extended family. This being the Philippines the latter category includes random strangers.

Stuff you can get in Lucena and Lucban: broas, kiping, pancit hab-hab, longganisang Lucban.

Thanks to Ms Millie Dizon and the SM marketing group for allowing me to tag along to the My City, My SM launches. I’ve seen more of my own country in the last four and a half months than I have in decades.