Does anyone still read blogs?
In the rare instance that she sits down long enough to write, Mia has this to say.
Usual topics: education, art, lifestyle, and other things worth more than a thread.
[Portfolio] Fanfiction in the Classroom: Field Notes from a Fanfic Author turned Educator
I am still in utter disbelief that I had a basis for writing this. Fan fiction was like admitting that we read a novel’s “good parts” over and over again, and it’s a rabbit hole from there once you find it. I found a teacher’s lesson plan about fan fiction to a sheltered 7th grader and I genuinely freaked out. Hence, this article.
Also, the baby I spawned five years ago with my dearest friends and a former editor of mine is undergoing a site relaunch. Where once we had this tiny idea of making a female-oriented gaming magazine has now borne teeth. We’re still talking games, but we’re hunkering down to the real talk in an era where it’s not “just a game”. From Girls Got Game (GGG), We are now Play Without Apology (PWOA).
Copyedits by Noey Pico, Graphics by Lee Flores.
First published on Play Without Apology.
Click the pages to read the article.
[Portfolio] Let’s Get It On: A List of Good Eats You Can Get from Metro Manila’s Motels
First published on Pepper on August 1, 2014. I am often asked if I had to actually stay in those places to do this piece. No, but I know even admitting that will only lead to more nagging doubt, wouldn’t it? Hehe! But I hope you had as much fun reading this as I did writing it. Scaled down to PG-13 from an R-13 raunchy draft thanks to editing by Pamela Cortez.
Click the pdf below to turn the pages.
Summer 2017: Doing More
I was recently scandalized by two other people before who made awful well-meaning jokes about not being able to earn off teaching. I knew that teaching would not pay as well as corporate, and it won’t allow me to be a stereotypical millennial by way of traveling wherever or buying really nice things, but it would at least keep the roof over my head and food on the table.
It took over a year to get me to the pay grade competitive to my previous corporate jobs, but for the most part it was something I was willing to bear with. For lack of an MA or a LET, that would do…for now, anyway.
It’s ironic that teachers aren’t paid a lot when it costs so much to get an education nowadays. I can’t imagine paying to send someone to school with what I earn now. I can go on and on about my own social and political philosophies, but that’s an entry for another day with proper citations. In the end as well, philosophy can only go so far.
I just know that I have better things to do than make rich people richer, or to take orders from behind a desk. Even with the realities of of adult debt, I want to do more than my job.
So for the summer at volunteered to teach English at Young Focus, an NGO that helps in-need children of Tondo, Metro Manila. We could only achieve so much in about 4.5 hours together over a span of a month, but at the end of the day – they did it! They were given a place to make mistakes, were corrected with respect, and reminded to think beyond their own limits. In about 4.5 hours worth of lessons they made their own study plan for the language, stories, and were able to talk about themselves and the people they just met.
This is something that I hope will be a regular thing for all of us. I can hope that it won’t end there, and they keep at it. For now at least, they have an idea on how to do so. In the best case scenario, it’s something they’ll be able to pass on in the future.
The Grad School Survival Guide in Doodles
I haven’t had time to update because of this.
Are you a graduate student? How did you survive graduate school?
Convict Cake: Bilibid’s Nameless Bakeshop and the Inmates Who Run It
Originally published on Marci 6, 2014 on Pepper. Words by me, photos and text editing with additional reporting by Lars Roxas. Photo editing by Mylene Chung.
It started with a joke. At least, I thought it was a joke.
I was late for a good friend’s party. I had missed the singing of the birthday song and the blowing out of the candles, but there was still a lot of cake. My friend cheerfully offered me a slice. “Would you like cake from Bilibid?” she asked. I didn’t believe her, being used to bouts of irreverence from my friends, but I did accept the cake.
She sliced me a piece from the spongy golden cake, its sticky yellow icing glistening under the flourescent light in their dining room. I was surprised at how fluffy it was. If she hadn’t said anything, I would have thought they’d bought it from a direct order baker. “No, really,” she insisted, “Bilibid.”
“How did you get this cake from there?” I asked. Little did I know that the answer would lead me from the comforts of their home to the Maximum Security Compound of the New Bilibid Prison.
Continue reading “Convict Cake: Bilibid’s Nameless Bakeshop and the Inmates Who Run It”