Chronicles of a Freshie Journalist: Putting "Un" with Fashionable
What to do when you’re covering an event that you’re awfully under-dressed for?
I remember what an old editor once advised, “I don’t trust a journalist that’s well-dressed! It shows that he has time to care for how he looks!”
I’ve learned to look put-together for the business beat ever since I got sent to an impromptu meeting on casual Friday. I was dressed in pink leggings, an oversized shirt, and ratty vans at a corporate office. That is not an experience I’d like to repeat.
In my defense, no dress code was given in this event invitation. So I was “officey” at a nighttime event. I could have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for the fact that it was organized by a fashion magazine. (Yes, I am a newbie journalist who has not “read” all the people in the neighborhood!)
At the very least, I was in heels. Still, I knew I was in trouble as the fashion editors went around asking for details of outfits. I was surrounded by little black dresses, evening gowns, and purses that were probably flown in with their own private jet.
“This is from Zara, and my bag’s from a boutique in New York!”
“My shirt’s from Ukay…but my bag’s Vuitton.”
I was actually asked about my outfit details, “Uhm. The cardigan is from my Mom’s closet and my skirt’s from Baguio ukay.” I smiled meekly, took a gulp from my wine glass, then fled.
I gave a fellow writer, Denice, a call, “I have an emergency. Get down here, now. Get dressed–well-dressed, but don’t dress more than meeeee!”
Denice caught up an hour later. After one glance around the room, she downed a few more glasses of wine with me.
Would it have been worth dressing up for? The event was for a photography exhibit followed by a short film premiere. I checked out the exhibit, and found nothing much to write about. It was a standard fashion showcase. The styling was gorgeous, though by the signage of the model’s name below the photo, it was obvious that fashion was only an excuse to make connections.
Sure enough, no model outfits were shown in full, from head to two. The models were in profile, the most shown were from waist-up, if not up-close.
Then came the film.
I’m all for a showcase of fashion with film, especially in the era of engagement. While visually rich, it fails in very simple continuity. It had a motive coming out of nowhere, which makes it all a waste. I also have an ax to grind as it dared call itself “noir” when it was shot in full, lush color.
I took one last look around. Glamour wear all around, plates of fine cheeses, glasses of scotch, freeflowing wine — and all this put together around honestly so-so features.
Time to leave the bubble and put on some sensible flats.
Chronicles of a Freshie Journalist: Putting “Un” with Fashionable
What to do when you’re covering an event that you’re awfully under-dressed for?
I remember what an old editor once advised, “I don’t trust a journalist that’s well-dressed! It shows that he has time to care for how he looks!”
I’ve learned to look put-together for the business beat ever since I got sent to an impromptu meeting on casual Friday. I was dressed in pink leggings, an oversized shirt, and ratty vans at a corporate office. That is not an experience I’d like to repeat.
In my defense, no dress code was given in this event invitation. So I was “officey” at a nighttime event. I could have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for the fact that it was organized by a fashion magazine. (Yes, I am a newbie journalist who has not “read” all the people in the neighborhood!)
At the very least, I was in heels. Still, I knew I was in trouble as the fashion editors went around asking for details of outfits. I was surrounded by little black dresses, evening gowns, and purses that were probably flown in with their own private jet.
“This is from Zara, and my bag’s from a boutique in New York!”
“My shirt’s from Ukay…but my bag’s Vuitton.”
I was actually asked about my outfit details, “Uhm. The cardigan is from my Mom’s closet and my skirt’s from Baguio ukay.” I smiled meekly, took a gulp from my wine glass, then fled.
I gave a fellow writer, Denice, a call, “I have an emergency. Get down here, now. Get dressed–well-dressed, but don’t dress more than meeeee!”
Denice caught up an hour later. After one glance around the room, she downed a few more glasses of wine with me.
Would it have been worth dressing up for? The event was for a photography exhibit followed by a short film premiere. I checked out the exhibit, and found nothing much to write about. It was a standard fashion showcase. The styling was gorgeous, though by the signage of the model’s name below the photo, it was obvious that fashion was only an excuse to make connections.
Sure enough, no model outfits were shown in full, from head to two. The models were in profile, the most shown were from waist-up, if not up-close.
Then came the film.
I’m all for a showcase of fashion with film, especially in the era of engagement. While visually rich, it fails in very simple continuity. It had a motive coming out of nowhere, which makes it all a waste. I also have an ax to grind as it dared call itself “noir” when it was shot in full, lush color.
I took one last look around. Glamour wear all around, plates of fine cheeses, glasses of scotch, freeflowing wine — and all this put together around honestly so-so features.
Time to leave the bubble and put on some sensible flats.
Aim for Heaven 2011
The title is a play on JK Anicoche and Sipat Lawin’s slogan for 2011.
It has been a rocky start. As soon as work started for 2011 the bills came in, and I had to get used to the fact that I was the one picking up the tab. So this is what adulthood’s like: like having a stone in a shoe at all times.
I have learned to roll with the punches. This season’s punches just happened to upgrade to brass knuckles.
To get by, I learn to thank the little things. Last Christmas I got enough gift certificates to get a Moleskine 2011 planner. Somehow, the emptiness of the planner gave me a sense of relief. I looked forward to filling it with to-do lists, quotes, pictures, and whatnot. I knew that as long as the pages had something, there would be something to look forward to, and work to do. As long as there was work, there were things in store for me and my sister. As of writing I have a magazine to put together, a tournament to organize, and a few meetings to manage.
I also started marking daily accomplishments. At the end of each day I marked a star and a completed task, or something I enjoyed within the day. So far, I had cleared out a few boxes, and kept a friend company for his birthday.
There are challenges ahead: ongoing hospital debt, bills, my sister’s schooling, but am trying to take it one at time. That’s the only way to go, I think. It is too easy to get lost in everything we have to do, and get bogged down in the process.
There will be defeats, but failure is not an option.
To the Moon and Back
I remember the very first j-karaoke session with Kara and Cyds: I was fifteen years old, with some vague idea of Japanese popular music being franchised with the anime and manga I followed. I somehow found myself in a karaoke room at Music21 Jupiter Street with Kara and Cyds. I just remember old L’arc~en~ciel songs being sung, and Luna Sea’s ‘I For You’. After karaoke, Cyds saw me off with a VHS copy of L’arc~en~ciel’s ‘Chronicles’.
I couldn’t stop playing it. ‘Honey’ became part of the morning soundtrack.
I moved to Indonesia shortly after that. While in Jakarta, my arrival from school was just in time for MTV Taiwan’s Japanese Music countdown. At this time, ‘Honey’ was number one on the charts as L’arc~en~ciel had released a special compilation album. In the wake of the Utada Hikaru and Hamasaki Ayumi phase, the jrock started trickling in for mainstream Indonesian consumption. On a whim, I got Luna Sea’s ‘Period’ album on cassette tape. ‘I For You’, ‘Shine’, and ‘Love Song’ were the songs of choice from home to school every day for months. I also remember my Japanese classmate insisting on playing ‘Tonight’ at a school assembly. You don’t have to know Japanese to appreciate it: it brought the house down.
When I got back to Manila for college, I became friends with Kalen by way of Jrock. Just when I thought my jrock wave had ebbed, she got a copy of L’arc~en~ciel’s SMILE bundled with a live performance dvd. I remember her playing it, and from the first riff of ‘Ready Steady Go’ to Hyde strutting out to sing his part, I found myself running to the TV. I dropped to my knees and stared: I was smitten all over again.
I borrowed a copy of a double disc Luna Sea CD from her too, and in addition to the staples I discovered ‘Sweetest Coma Again’. It is still one of the sexiest songs I’ve ever heard.
I admit that I’m not as thorough with their discography as I should be, but of all the songs I’ve heard, it’s their songs that mark the more poignant moments of high school and college. I got into L’arc~en~ciel before I moved to Indonesia, Luna Sea played through 11th and 12th grade, and it was back to L’arc~en~ciel and Luna Sea during college, now peppered by Miyavi and whatever else Kalen had on her radio.
I caught L’arc~en~ciel live after I graduated college. When Luna Sea confirmed plans for a world tour, I caved in and made arrangements to see them, at great personal expense (note: mine, not any of Mom’s money), after Mom passed on.
So, how about that Luna Sea concert? I have worked with performing arts, hung out with musicians, and I’ve had my share of concerts, but I have never seen anything like that before. It was like Luna Sea had never taken a break! They were upbeat the whole time, and Ryuichi’s fingers seemed to tremble with every note sung. Has it really been twenty years since the band first got together? They were acting as if it were their first major live. I was torn between letting the music wash over me, or watching the trance-like state they were in. They were not just performing FOR us, the audience, it was like they were letting the music go through them to us.
To think, while they took minute breaks between songs, they did not break for a full intermission. Still, the band did not look one bit tired.
I knew they would play ‘Storm’, and ‘Tonight’, but hearing them live sent a delicious shiver through me. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived, and had deadlines on hold to go to this concert, but all that was forgotten in the roar of the crowd, with fists pumping in beat to the music. Somehow the music stirred up the teenage fangirl in me again, with the giddiness of someone hopped up on pixie sticks. “KISS ME IN THE STORMY!” I shrieked the second voice to the Engrish lyrics to ‘Storm’, then “KIMI WA DAKE NO MELODY!” to Tonight.
And yes, it was worth every penny spent, and so much more.
No doubt, that will be the last fanciful whim I’ll have for a long time. I allowed the girl to come out in Hong Kong, but I’ve returned to Manila to take on adulthood.
However limited my Japanese, I owe it to the jrock, especialy L’arc~en~ciel and Luna Sea for easing the difficult transitions of my lifetime.
Of Grief and Other Things
It has been four months and counting since Mom passed on.
The only thing that keeps me alive sometimes is the idea that it could be worse.
People ask me if I miss Mom. I’ll be honest: no. When I wonder if I should begin to miss her, instead I become resentful of the things that she didn’t prepare us for, of the wasted assets that could have gone to so much more.
I become more tetchy towards unsolicited advice; People tell me to miss her (see above), or People say that I shouldn’t regret the things I haven’t told her. What if I feel, honest-to-goodness, that I told her everything I felt? Both good and bad? Would I be accused of being in denial?
People tell me to relax. I don’t know how. Close family friends sympathize with this, and have always told me that what I’m dealing with now is not usual for the someone in her mid-twenties. Well, story of my life, I’ve always had to grow up faster.
But aren’t Mica and I strong? Mixed bag there. We get by on the things we HAVE to do. I guess that’s our strength when all else fails.
I have grieved–or would it be more accurate to admit that I am grieving? Not for the person per se, but for the new normal we have to define. For the extra work involved that we would rather, as “normal kids” do, declare to do on their own.
Depression runs strong in my family, and it comes out in the most mundane things. Mom worked her butt off. Mica stays up for days at a time. Just when I think I’m fine I get hit with hyper acidity and I find difficulty holding my meals in.
This is a profile of Mia in depression. I admit that this entry got triggered by the death of Dobby in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part 1. What was first normal cinema tears turned into unstoppable weeping, all over a CG character. Good movie by the way, I’m actually glad I watched it ahead. I don’t think I can bring myself to watch that again for a while though.
I have been functioning, but I have become even more sensitive to things: A little rejection here, a callous remark there. The idea of huge groups make me a panic. I can chatter on and put a smile on my face for hours then suddenly my mood will shift, and I can’t explain why.
I have goldfish moments. I think this is best exemplified by the start of ‘Garden State’, when Zach Braff zones in and out of his work at the Japanese restaurant. It feels like an out of body experience, when everyone slows down and talk, noise, is muffled out. It feels like autopilot, like I could prop my body on a huge-ass stick and be pre-programmed to mingle or something.
Work is good. Work THRIVES when I’m at rock bottom for some reason. What I lack in social skills or in relating, I make up for with productivity.
Why am I writing this? Because while I had same vague idea that all this is totally normal, no one else talks about it. I rarely read of anyone who writes about it being this way, it’s usually a fluffy carrying on of a torch of memories with a flurry of doves or something.
Friends tell me they miss me. I miss ME most of all.
There are the stages of grief. I just never really realized that it is actually a cycle.
I know this too will pass. I wish that time would come in…now.