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We give writing workshops at the Ayala Museum. The workshops consist of three two-hour sessions of lectures, exercises, and group discussions held over three weeks. The next workshop, Writing Boot Camp, will start on 3 September 2015. For more information or to make a reservation, email Marj Villaflores, villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

This month we are featuring, with their permission, essays by the participants in July’s Personal Essay workshop. The submissions were half-standup comedy, half-trauma ward. We encouraged everyone to get over their fear of exposure, embarrassment and “What will people think?” Here are some of the results.

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Still from Napoleon Dynamite. When we googled movies about online dating to illustrate this essay, we discovered that there are no great movies about online dating. Because people looking at screens is not exciting. Black Hat almost did it, but only because it starred Chris Hemsworth.

Almost Forty
By Mia V. Estolano

Almost 40. If I were to live until age 70, I would have lived half my life already –no husband, no kids, no house, no boyfriend, no boyfriend…yet. A pasted-on smile is my usual answer to relatives or friends who ask the squirm-inducing question. I love my work. I love to travel. Oftentimes, the person who asks the question lets go. At times, they prod more. I don’t mind answering. It can get annoying, especially when they seem to think there’s something wrong with me, or worse, that I am a sad person.

But I am happy. I love men. And I’ve tried dating, just not the usual route. I tried to get dates online. It’s quicker and cuts the preliminaries of dating. At least that’s what my cousin told me. We are similar, only she lives in the US where online dating is very common. She said that I should try it.

So I did.

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We give writing workshops at the Ayala Museum. The workshops consist of three two-hour sessions of lectures, exercises, and group discussions held over three weeks. The most recent workshop, on The Personal Essay, concluded last week. The next one, Writing Boot Camp, will start on 3 September 2015. For more information or to make a reservation, email Marj Villaflores, villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

This month we are featuring, with their permission, essays by the participants. The last batch was half-standup comedy, half-trauma ward. We encouraged everyone to get over their fear of exposure, embarrassment and “What will people think?” Here are some of the results.

* * * * *

Christmas Morning in Lincoln Heights Jail Drunk Tank, 1952

The Rock Bottom Story
by Cristina de la Paz

I’ve been trying to write a book for some time. I’d like to call it an autobiography of sorts. It doesn’t have quite the right beginning since I can’t really tell where everything starts. I could just start from the middle but where is the middle? As for the end. . .there are many ends, I just don’t know when and where to stop.

This is my story. Not a chronological series of events from the day I was born to the day I die, but a collection of moments in between that would make for a really good story. The kind of story that folks would think was based on a movie and not the other way around, like a life-imitating-art kind of scenario. I heard stories like those where I ended up, and I thought the same exact thing: “Boy, that sure sounds like a plot for a movie.” But then I get to my story and all film comparisons go flying out the window.

I’ve been trying to tell a story about how my life turned to absolute hell. That moment where I crashed, burned, hit rock bottom and dragged myself, bloodied and torn through a wasteland of drama and disillusion. Where does one start with such a tale? The beginning is a blur, the middle a sea of confusion and the end—well, the end is where I am.

So I guess I start at the end.

I have been off booze and drugs for a year and a few months. It would have been three years and a few months had it not been for an errant Negroni during a trip to the US, but that’s a moot point. Really. I had gone a long way to get to that point in California and, after I finished that drink I realized I made a mistake and swore it won’t ever happen again, and it hasn’t.
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We give writing workshops at the Ayala Museum. The workshops consist of three two-hour sessions of lectures, exercises, and group discussions held over three weeks. Our participants are mostly working people, so the sessions are held in the evenings, after office hours, with coffee and refreshments. We focus on the practical aspects of writing, like How to stop planning to write something and actually do it, and Good luck waiting for that thunderbolt of inspiration, say Hi to Thor when it happens.

The most recent workshop, on The Personal Essay, concluded last week. The next one, Writing Boot Camp, will start on 3 September 2015. For more information or to make a reservation, email Marj Villaflores, villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

This month we will feature, with their permission, essays by the participants. The last batch was half-standup comedy, half-trauma ward. Some of the authors preferred to use aliases. Everyone actually wrote something.

* * * * *

Muppet mugshots from Conan

Nerves of Steal
by Peter Imbong

Everyone has a childhood memory of shoplifting—mine was just slightly extended.

Back in grade school, I would pocket erasers from the bookstore in front of my school. This would happen several times a month since the bookstore was my mom’s designated pick-up spot. The erasers weren’t the cheap rubber kind, mind you. These were artist’s erasers, the kind one could mold like putty. I barely used them, but together with my pencil case that had several cylindrical pencil holders that resembled rocket launchers, I loved showing them off to my classmates proud of their 164-piece Crayola collection.

There are many reasons, people say, why a child would steal: a lack of understanding of the value of money, no self-control, peer pressure, a call for attention, or just plain hardship. While my eraser stint was probably born of a longing to look cool, I soon found out that I was simply cheap.

One weekend in high school, I found myself roaming the department store of a run-down commercial complex located near our house, in what others would already consider a province. Called Le Grand Mall, its name belied its true identity. You could tell it was ancient because it still had an underwhelming fountain as its centerpiece, and they had a food court located in the basement that smelled of used cooking oil and feet.

I had brought enough money for a movie and a snack, but decided not to go to the movies because the only halfway interesting film showing starred Nicolas Cage. So I began to roam their half-decent department store in the hopes of finding something interesting.

In the music section, I found 2 CDs I wanted to get. As I didn’t have enough money to get both, I decided to buy one and simply slip the other one into my shopping bag. I thought I had mastered this move from my years of eraser swiping. However, it turns out, compact disks are bigger than erasers.

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We give writing workshops at the Ayala Museum. The workshops consist of three two-hour sessions of lectures, exercises, and group discussions held over three weeks. Our participants are mostly working people, so the sessions are held in the evenings, after office hours, with coffee and refreshments. We focus on the practical aspects of writing, like How to stop planning to write something and actually do it, and Good luck waiting for that thunderbolt of inspiration, say Hi to Thor when it happens.

The most recent workshop, on The Personal Essay, concluded last week. The next one, Writing Boot Camp, will start on 3 September 2015. For more information or to make a reservation, email Marj Villaflores, villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.

This month we will feature, with their permission, essays by the participants. The last batch was half-standup comedy, half-trauma ward. Some of the authors preferred to use aliases. Everyone actually wrote something.

* * * * *

Photo from www.felicitypage.com

Chasing Ben
by Pilar Rica D. Tabora

I was there for Ben. Benjamin Covington, the tall, green-eyed, curly-haired jerk of a boyfriend whom Felicity Porter blindly chased for four seasons of the TV show, Felicity. He wasn’t a real person (I knew that), but I wanted to revel in the essence of Ben Covington so badly, I dove into the germ-infested, sweat-laden, heat wave-stinking maze of the New York City subway to find him.

It was the summer of 2003, just a year after Felicity ended. J.J. Abrams received a lot of flak for inserting a ridiculous time travel storyline in the last season, but I didn’t care. Ben was a jerk, but he had a heart of gold. I was going to name my future son after him.

I was in Providence, Rhode Island for a summer study intensive on graphic design. Like Felicity (Keri Russell), I had usurped my future and disappointed my parents. Felicity dropped Stanford med school for the University of New York’s art program—her move was instigated by her high school crush Ben (Scott Speedman), whom she barely knew. I, on the other hand, had realized in the middle of my college thesis on the rehabilitation of the Marikina Riverbanks that architecture and city planning was not for me. I could not imagine myself computing for bags of sand, negotiating with misogynist engineers and corrupt government officials, or waiting years for a project to end.

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Due to inclement weather.

On the other hand, you have another week to enroll in the workshop.

New workshop schedule:
July 16, 23 and last day (TO BE ANNOUNCED)
6:30pm to 8:30pm, Ayala Museum

For inquiries, email Marj at villaflores.md@ayalafoundation.org.