bossanovagirl

angel

i was rubbing the bedsheet with a moistened washcloth, to take out the milk droplets (anton likes to bottlefeed while crawling on the bed--go figure) before it stains, when i noticed anton making these scratchy noises (similar to the ones i'm making with the washcloth) with his right hand on the bedsheet.  he was seated beside me on the bed, in his pyjamas.  (he could effortlessly sit up straight now, without falling down.)

i could not believe my baby was doing that. he watched intently and imitated what i was doing. he rubbed his hand on the sheet, keeping pace with me, and once in a while he would look at my face.  it looked like he wanted to help me take the droplets out of the bedsheet. his innocent, rapt face with his brows knitted and mouth slightly open had the sweetest expression while he "worked".  i had no choice but to drop what i was doing and hug him and shower his face with kisses.  in a fit of giggling, baby anton suffered mommy's outburst. 

Those who can, do...

And those who can't, teach.  The playwright George Bernard Shaw is said to have once said that.

Woody Allen is even more disparaging of teachers:  Those who can't do, teach.  Those who can't teach, teach gym.

This afternoon I had a most interesting and enlightening conversation with a former student in VC 137.  He's majoring in Film, in Mass Com. He had texted me last week if he could consult me about his plans to get into advertising.  He was hoping, as his text went, to get "some tips on becoming successful in advertising."  And I replied with something like, "Why me, of all people? Hahaha.  If I wer any mor succssful in advrtsng, I probly wouldn't be teaching now."  Just before we parted ways, he brought it up and he asked me why I said that. 

But I am getting ahead of my story.

Rewind to the first part.  We had agreed to meet in FA at 1:30 PM, but he was already there when I arrived at 1:10 PM.  We talked in the faculty room, and he seemed almost embarassed to talk to me because there were other profs in the room (in FA profs share a common room--we only have cubicles).  So I told him we can talk in the FA lib.  And as we walked, he told me that he was worried because of his academic background. 

Turns out, that he had already spent five years already as a Statistics major and he shifted to Film just as he was about to finish. He says he was torn between Vis Com and Film, that time he left Statistics.  After a talk with Ma'am Mitzi, he finally decided to enroll at CMC. (I wonder what Ma'am Mitzi told him.) I reassured him that he needn't worry,  because I have a friend who has an Econ degree from the Ateneo, who worked as a pre-school teacher, then a reporter for BusinessWorld before she got into advertising and worked her way up.  I said that the advertising industry was a merry stew of people from different backgrounds. And that stranger backgrounds actually made more interesting creatives.

But, he said that he finally realized what he wanted to do after taking my VC 137 class. (I blushed, not because I found what he said very flattering but because he is such a cutie. Ask Ma'am Mitzi. A very nice articulate and polite one, at that. If I had a younger sister his age, I wouldn't mind him dating my sister, or kung mas maaga ako lumandi, my daughter. Yikes--yes, he's on Friendster, too.) Of course, I did not readily believe him, because, after all, this was a guy who was asking for tips to get into advertising and he must have naively (or shrewdly) thought I can use my connections to get him into advertising. Or then again, he might've picked me because I was, so far, his only link to advertising as yet.

But in the course of our conversation, as he vividly recalled the things he liked about our class--the writing and layout exercises, the strategy writing, the campaign planning, the group work, the pitch--i got convinced that the guy was sincere.  He even remembered the name of one of our panelists, when I mentioned that he can try to apply at the agency where this panelist worked as VP, once he graduates.

He said he especially liked the radio exercises. (There were two.  In the first one I made the students write a monologue for a character without revealing what the character was supposed to be--it was a preparatory exercise in characterization and diction.  The second was an exercise in writing a radio commercial using a vivid demonstration or a vivid metaphor.)  He said that he can see himself doing that.

I suggested that he get himself an internship with an ad agency for his practicum.  He was worried that Vis Com majors got an edge, because of their art directorial skills on top of their writing skills (his fear is actually justified--teaching VC 137 made me realize that there are a lot of really good writers--future creative director materials--in FA);  he asked if it would help if he learned Photoshop. (He really did seem so passionate about getting into the advertising business.)  I admitted to him that Vis Com majors did have a bit of an edge because they have profs who are practitioners, but that he needn't really worry because he was interested in writing copy, after all, and not in becoming an art director. Besides, he really could write (i remember he wrote a really clever ad for C2) and, as a Film major, for sure, he was a visual thinker as well.

He was so concerned in making his resume so ready for that time he will apply to ad agencies, so he asked if it would help if he took psych subjects as electives.  I told him it wasn't necessary at all. I found it so funny and touching--his intensity and naivete. (Oh, if he only knew about the disappointments and heartaches, too.  Uh oh.  Did I paint such a rosy, dreamy and unrealistic picture of advertising?) All he needed to have, I said, was to have a keen understanding of consumer insights, and the consumer buying system.  And that comes, no more from intellectualizing than from gut feel.  Which he can also use in coming up with the Big Idea. The other things, I said, he can already learn on the job. And besides, I told him that his main concern, for now, should really just be on how to get a foot in the door of advertising.

There were other things he recalled from our class. (Incredible, because it was already a year ago.) He also said he learned how to look at ads and how to critique them, and that he's done it ever since.  (This was our very first exercise.  To bring  print ads that sucked and tell the class why it sucked.  I made them rewrite and relayout these ads in the second exercise.)  He said he was grateful for all the things he learned in our (very) short semester. (As a substitute prof, I tried so hard to pack a sem's worth of work into 3 months because the students were understandably feeling shortchanged in the almost two months they didn't have a prof. Was so lucky my hastily put-together syllabus worked;  we were able to cover a lot of ground and we had great pitches to present to a professional panel at the end of the sem.) And so, before we parted, he asked me about a reply I made in our text exchange.

"Because,"  he said, "I'd like to think that people who teach, choose to teach." He sounded disappointed, perhaps because he didn't want to think that a prof who's inspired him to find his purpose thought of herself as an advertising castoff.

And that's when I told him about the Woody Allen quote. I laughingly told him I was always self-deprecating.

(What I didn't tell him though, is what he helped me discover in myself--something I have not convinced myself till this afternoon--because of my numerous self-doubts.  That, simply, I could teach! Because of him, I am now beginning to think I really could. I'd always thought I'd gotten into teaching by accident. And, most important of all, he also taught me that the students--at least most of them--are really listening. For all the indifference they sometimes show me, hahaha, this is so hard to believe.  Thank you so much, C. And, good luck!)

older

another schoolyear ends.  another batch graduates.

(tapos, the soundtrack in my head goes off, "is this the little boy i carried?  is this the little girl at play?  i don't remember growing older...when...did...theyyy?...sunrise, sunset. sunrise, sunset. swiftly fly the daaays...")

tonight was held the fa candlelight ceremony. perhaps one of the most beautiful--if not the most beautiful--pre-commencement exercises in the whole up diliman campus. a candle lit for each candidate for graduation (the university graduation will be held tomorrow)-- what could be more beautifully symbolic?

with none of the stiff, boring ceremonies of the kind held in stuffy auditoriums, the very romantic fa candlelight ceremony is held in the open air (it was hot and humid, though)-- under the stars. of course, not everything is as it seems.  the faculty members again had a field day making side comments as each candidate for graduation was called. 

prof. defeo jokingly added "...from venezuela", "...from puerto rico", "...from nicaragua" to the names of the pretty girls, and then he pointed out the cute guys who, allegedly, at some point of their student lives in fa, volunteered to be his boyfriend.  then, i wouldn't say which prof, but, this one on the other hand kept tabs of those who were supposed to have graduated from fa a long time ago. or who went out with whom.  needless, to say, my co-teachers' comments guaranteed there wasn't a dull moment in the peanut gallery.

kidding aside, it is an emotional time for the profs as well. the jokes were perhaps just to lighten the mood.  in the five years i've been with fa, i have grown to appreciate just how the profs (bar none, at least in vis comm) including the much-maligned profs (i read my students' blogs just as much as they read mine, haha) care so much for their students. and this has earned my respect for each and every one of them.

i have attended all the candlelight ceremonies since i joined fa in 2002 (i signed up with fa in march 2002), and every time, i feel something in me dies. 

now, that sounds so melodramatic, but i just couldn't find the right words at the moment to express what i feel.  so this will have to do for the moment.

fa feels like a halfway house.  you take the kids under your wing, you try your best to nurture their talents (it really depends on how they trust you to teach them), then they grow and before you know it, they're off. and you start over again, taking on and nurturing another batch.

and, always and inevitably, at the end of the candlelight ceremonies is the confusion. the students scramble madly to have their photos taken with each other.  i feel happily detached from the scene, as if i'm having an out of body experience watching everything. and i'm reminded of that summer night not so long ago when i was the one in their shoes. then once in a while i get yanked back to reality by a student requesting to have his/her  picture taken with me. or a student introducing his parents to me.  sometimes i am embarassed by the tears that suddenly threaten to fall when i talk and my voice cracks. only then i realize just how moved i was by the ceremony that had just ended. i am what they call "mababaw ang luha." the parents must think their kid's prof is such a loony, hahaha.

Job Wanted.

I may be jobless very soon.

Because of UP's up-or-out tenureship policy for junior faculty members. The funny thing is that I don't even have a copy of this rule that's soon going to kick me out of UP. All I have are reactions to it by Faculty Regent Prof. Simbulan and Academic Union president Prof. Taguiwalo, and regurgitated interpretations of it by my superiors (I have the suspicion they also have second-hand info).  I cannot even scrutinize the document to look for any loopholes, if my life depended on it. Buti na lang my life doesn't depend on it.

(My boss offered to take 3 teaching units from me next sem so I can finish my MFA--which is 6 units and 2 semesters--and my remaining 3-unit FA subject in one year.  Gawd, I hope she realizes what she's asking of me.  A pay cut and a crazy work and study sked.  Would rather go hungry than insane.)

It's so pathetic that we don't even have an employee handbook. (Sabagay, we don't naman have much employee benefits and privileges they can list down even if we did have a handbook, so it's just gonna be a waste of paper.) All I know is that lecturers and instructors have 5 years to finish their MFA, and assistant profs and up have 3 years to finish theirs.  I'm an assistant prof, and my three years end this summer.

Getting an MFA (only available in FA) in UP is like going through the eye of the needle.  To date, there must have been only just a handful of people who'd finished the MFA degree in UP. The program itself, obviously, has a problem.  But that's another story.

I think UP's up-or-out rule is a cruel rule. On top of so many things, like what Simbulan and Taguiwalo mention in their letters--i.e.  paid study leaves, enabling circumstances, list of refereed journals, lesser load, etc., the rule doesn't take into account that female profs become pregnant and give birth.  Or worse, have miscarriages.  In the past four years I have been taking my MFA (my first year is not counted because I was put on tenure track only in 2004), I was pregnant and had a miscarriage, then I was pregnant again and finally I was able to give birth last year.  Except for the sem I gave birth, I always had 9 units teaching load, and variably had study units on top of it--I even took on 6 units extra first sem last school year. Because we are undermanned (and I couldn't afford to take a pay cut because of reduced teaching units anyway), I prioritized teaching and I plodded through my MFA.  And because of my dedication to my students, my department, the College of Fine Arts, and the University of the Philippines, I may now  have to leave my job soon. 

Which is ok, if you become pragmatic about it,  really.  I save more money staying home than driving to work (I forget when I could last afford to have my tank filled up to capacity), and eating lunch and merienda every day that I'm teaching or studying.  I do not have to shell out personal money to buy internet cards anymore for online consultations. I will now soon put an end to my hand-to-mouth existence and start looking for a real paying job, or at least some freelance projects. And maybe I can already order iced tea or even Coke Light with my meals in Choco Kiss. (And dessert!).  Heck, maybe I can have coffee at Starbucks again.  Switch to DSL or wi-fi internet.  Get a postpaid subscription to Smart.  Shop again at Mango, Per Una and Urban and Co. A and I (and Anton) can go malling weekly again.

Right now I do not contribute much to the household kitty (my husband, baby and I are living at my parents' house), so by losing my job I could actually do my family a favor.  I could just mooch off my parents some more.  They don't seem to mind.  They're too happy playing with my baby to mind.

Anyway, the verdict's gonna be out by next week.  Who knows, there might yet be a happy unexpected turn of events?

always not enough time.

i have absolutely no excuse not to record my baby's milestones.

i have 3 baby albums,
          2 baby books,
          2 baby scrapbooks
          1 sketch book, and
          1 baby journal.

Add to this the baby foot and hand casting kit which I still haven't gotten around to using (and Anton's hands and feet are so big na!).  Even the brag book I carry around in my bag badly needs updating.

I have no choice but to one day fill them up when I have the time (I wonder when that's gonna be), and in the meantime this blog will have to serve its purpose as a substitute baby journal.

Even then, I could only record my baby's milestones in hindsight now, just emerging as we are now from the previously very busy thesis delibs month.  Am so disappointed to learn one student felt I give him very little time, when I had made myself accessible even for online consultations on almost anything--even the design plans and the thesis draft--and practically any time of the week (nights, weekends, early mornings, etc., but I had to draw the line when he texted me once at 11 pm).  But I digress.

I had been remiss in recording my baby's milestones.  Perhaps the only best thing I was able to do was to record his developments in photos and in videos. And then next is his Multiply page (though I couldn't figure out how to configure it, except for the video and photos page, that's why I still blog here.  Some links don't work.  Maybe it has to do with my very slow ISP dial-up.)

So till then, I could only summarize his milestones.  Will embellish later.

First month:  His first days were recorded in great detail--in words and in drawings--in my baby journal.  But one thing I failed to record was that he rolled, for the very first time, on his seventh day. Oh, and that day we took him home from Asian Hospital.  We were given a very warm send-off.  (Asian Hospital really knows how to make new mommies feel so good--I was even given a rose). 

A and I were so scared Anton might wake up (we were so scared kasi we wouldn't know what to do when he wakes up), so we were very careful and A drove very slowly.  Anton and I rode at the back of the car, and during the 45 minutes or so ride my back strained and my arms ached from keeping them very steady. When we got to Antipolo, we realized we needn't have worried.  Anton slept through the afternoon (we got home at 1 pm), and through the night.

Second month:  Anton starts to make bungisngis faces.  In his first month he used to smile only when he was sleeping, and even then they say babies really weren't smiling but passing gas.  Now he smiles even when his eyes are open, so I wonder if he really could see well already and is actually making eye contact as he is smiling.  He can stretch and reach out for things now.  He keeps hitting Pooh and his friends which we arrange around him when we lay him down on his mattress on the floor.  He could also reach up and touch the toys attached to his baby gym, but his attention span is short and he doesn't like to spend a long time on the floor when he's awake. Also, his feedings have fallen into a predictable pattern, which enabled me to do my chores--incredibly without a maid or yaya to help me--whenever he was asleep.

Third month:  Anton starts to make raspberries, or razzing sounds.  He steadily and very quickly gains weight after his 5-day confinement at the Capitol Medical Hospital where he was suspected (though truth to tell  I was really never convinced) to have pneumonia. At the same time he starts saying "ah-goo", especially when he's happy.

to be continued.

if i knew back then what i know now...

this morning, i got an unexpected SMS from a masscom student who was in my VC 137 class.  he was asking  if he could drop by FA so i can give him advice on how to--of all things--be successful in advertising.

first of all, VC 137?!! now, most of my former students would ask, what was ma'am papa doing, teaching of all things--VC 137?!!  VC 137 (Visual-Verbal Communication) has been handled throughout FA history by probably some of the most brilliant copywriters philippine advertising had ever seen--yolly ong, mon jimenez, butch uy, melvin mangada, isabel gamboa, some others i forget (so sorry!), and is now presently handled by publicis creative big boss marlon rivera.  to those who know me, it would have seemed rather presumptuous of me, to have taken VC 137 on, had it not been an emergency substitution. 

truth to tell, it was the last thing i needed--an overload, in a new subject yet with 76 students in two sections--in the beginning of a delicate pregnancy.

then next--ma'am papa, give tips on how to be successful in advertising?  as woody allen said: "those who can't do, teach.  and those who can't teach, teach gym." i can't really tell if this is true, but i left advertising well before i had the chance to find out. (at least i can say i've not had to live with the disgrace of being asked to leave the company, like a couple of my former bitch bosses. ay, i keep forgetting, tatlo na nga pala sila.)

it would be interesting to note that the first four--ong, jimenez, uy and mangada, have seemed, incredibly, to have passed on the legacy of copywriting brilliance to the next person by being their mentor in copy writing (i.e. ong taught jimenez's batch, jimenez taught uy's batch, and uy taught mangada's batch).  but wait, where does ma'am may figure in all of this dazzling transfer of copywriting brilliance? hahaha. (ong, jimenez and mangada all went on to open their own very successful ad agencies.  butch uy, sadly, had passed on in 2001.)

unfortunately, butch uy left FA the school year before i got into third year (to think i had been so excited to get into third year because i had heard so much about this legendary boy wonder of jwt).  so you see, ma'am may had been rather unceremoniously left out in all this while she was in FA, actually.

i actually balked at the idea of substituting the prof who'd suddenly gone on leave. it was too big a couple of shoes to fill for me.  i even came up with a list of former colleagues who i thought would fill in the vacancy nicely.  but apparently, it was not that easy to take in a sub from outside, because of the notorious bureaucracy in UP, so the vis com chair and the college sec said i had no choice but to take on VC 137.  they commisserated with my delicate first trimester (it was a high-risk pregnancy because i'd previously had a miscarriage) and my  six units overload (not to mention my 160 students that sem--my biggest ever in my five years of teaching) but they were firm on my taking the overload.

so teach VC 137 i did, teaching only what i had learned so far--about copywriting, art directing and advertising-- and going back to my story, i had at least more than made up for the sem i missed butch uy for my VC 137 at FA:  in his last year i was his concept team partner in campaigns, and i've fortunately had first-hand experience working (or at least interfacing) with yolly ong, emily abrera, gi gatchalian, bong osorio, and even client pedro dy-liacco--all featured authors in the anvil book "the science of advertising" (edited by ms. ong) which i used as our textbook for VC 137. now, not too many teachers of advertising i think can boast that she'd worked with the best, haha. except of course for marlon rivera ;-) it was rather flattering that for the VC 137 culmination activity where i had my classes form teams and compete for pitches (3 hypothetical pitches), the professional panelists were impressed with the quality of creative work the students came up with.

so, what i know (out of my years of advertising, out of teaching, out of freelance work, out of brainstorming with and motivating my students) for sure now is this:  the big idea doesn't exist in a vacuum. so many things must come into play--the target market, the consumer insight, the brand equity, the creative strat which includes all these, and the finding the right execution--clever copy with straight visual (or clever visual with straight copy, but never both clever at the same time), etc.  now i know how clueless my immediate bosses in middle management were then.  they were always telling us to make award-winning ads when they didn't even know the first thing how.

and given the chance to live my advertising life over, i believe would have chosen to be a copywriter.  an art director's job is time-consuming work. 

to my credit, i made my bitch bosses and my inept partners (in one agency) look good, @&%$#@&. a proof is one award of excellence for a campaign where my boss credited me only as art director even if wrote 95% of the copy (she'd pretty much ignored all the copywriting I'd been doing for the group).  i still have the trophy to this day  hehehe.  the agency ordered a copy for the client but they never picked it up, so our creative secretary gave it to me one time when she did her spring cleaning.

so will i be able to give tips on how to be successful in advertising?  probably.  at least i can tell this student who SMS'd me what i'd do differently if i only knew back then the things i know now.

milestone

today my baby learned to sit up--all by himself.

this morning baby and i tagged along on a trip to pampanga.  it was exhausting, and i got a migraine when we got back to antipolo, because it was so hot.  baby was in a better shape, mainly because he was wearing only his nappies most of the time so he was able to keep cool.

when we came back, we lay a bit on the bed, and very quickly baby launched into his favorite activity of rolling.  he rolled this way and that, and since his nappy was soaked i tried to change it as he rolled and twisted. i was quite helpless about it, even if i pinned down his arms with my elbows he kept on fidgeting.  then when i finally was able to put a nappy on him, he took out the adhesives and i put it on back again.  he kept on prying the nappy loose from himself by taking out the tapes until the tapes were quite useless because they didn't adhere anymore (there goes Php 7.50 down the drain).  then at one point, i gave up, and put nappies aside, and baby raised himself on his hands and feet and triumphantly wiggled his chubby dimpled bare bottom in the air. then i realized it was because he was trying something, and he wanted to be freed from his cumbersome nappies.

he rolled, tumbled, twisted some more till...voila!  he was grinning from ear to ear his trademark bungisngis grin. 

aww. my baby could finally sit on his own. *happy tears*

of dreams

no, don't tell me it sucks...not yet.  just bought my dvd this afternoon.

it has a great-looking cover.  plus, of course,  gael's in it. 

very very nice posters.  i'm tempted to make my own version.

morning shadows

Photo credit:  Daddy

Baby likes waking up as early as 6 AM, by which time he is already on all fours inside his crib, cooing and making "beautiful eyes", with this big grin on his face. (His strategy for people to pick him up is to charm them into picking him up.) You couldn't afford to ignore him by going back to sleep, because he will only bawl out and make it very difficult anyway for you to salvage your sleep.

So Baby and Mommy play a bit on the bed for a few minutes, waiting for it to be light outside, and if Mommy has her back turned to him for a second like if she prepared him a bottle of milk, for instance, he will slap poor Daddy awake. (When he was younger he used to tug at Daddy's sleeve to wake him up.  Now he's resorted to more brutal tactics.) To let Daddy sleep some more, Mommy and Baby go down to the garden.  But by that time, Daddy will already be awake, too, and he will sit with them in the garden, reading the papers, soaking in the sun before 8 o'clock.  (Daddy used to say he wasn't a morning person, and he was usually cranky if he woke up before 10 AM).

Except for the chirping of birds, and the voices of the neighbor's kids getting into their car for school, mornings are usually quiet.  And the air smells of the breeze, longganiza and coffee. There are always new flowers in lolo's garden--there are new St. Peter's blooms, Dona Auroras, and over the fence, the cluster of flowers at the end of the long branch of the bougainvilla bush outside just seems to grow heavier each morning as it bobs up and down in the gentle morning breeze.

Baby likes the shadows he and Mommy make on the wall.  It doesn't take him long to figure out where shadows come from;  he looks back and forth at Mommy and the shadows her hands playfully cast on the wall:  a dog, a spider, a bird, a monster munching on his nose. Baby giggles.  He decides he likes playing with shadows.