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Thursday, May 30, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
ImpreSOHrio
Witness daring feats, indescribable acts, and stupendous illusions!
Presenting ImpreSOHrio, the astounding School of Humanities Night!
June 6, 2013
6.00-9.00 PM
MVP Roofdeck, Ateneo de Manila University
Dela Costa wants YOU!
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
WriterSkill
WriterSkill is a
freelance writing organization and community of Ateneo student writers. We are
a proud and open organization of the School of Humanities—the home org for BFA
Creative Writing majors and minors, but open to anyone and everyone who wants
to write. We accept all forms of writing so long as you are open enough to show
people, and open enough to want to get better.
We specialize in
workshops for members to get their works critiqued by fellow members, with the
aim of helping members improve as a passionate, fostering community. We publish
members' works, organize and tie up with writing contests and competitions, and
hold events like bonding sessions, tie-ups with writing orgs in other
universities, and talks and symposiums by writers as they talk about their
craft, genres, and creative process.
Regular Projects/Events
Ø Workshops for
peer-critique where members help each other improve their works
Ø Publication of
member works in org chapbooks every semester
Ø Talks and
seminars about writing in general as well as specific genres
Ø Tie-ups with
external writing groups and contests like National Novel Writing Month,
National Poetry Writing Month, and the Student Writers Alliance of the
Philippines
Important Links
Ø Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/writerskill
Ø Twitter:
@ADMUWriterSkill
Samahan ng Pilosopiya
FILIPINO
Ang Samahan
sa Pilosopiya ay hindi lamang
isang organisasyong binubuo ng mga Philosophy majors at minors. Bilang Samahan, ito ay isang
pagkakaibigang pinagbubuklod ng Pilosopiya. Layunin ng Samahan ang linangin ang kultura ng malayang
diskurso at malikhaing pagninilay sa loob ng unibersidad. Katuwang ng Kagawaran
ng Pilosopiya, nais ng Samahan na ipagpatuloy ang tradisyon ng pamimilosopiya
sa pamamagitan ng iba't ibang uri ng simposia at sa paglathala ng taunang
publikasyon, ang Pilosopo
Tasyo.
ENGLISH
Samahan sa Pilosopiya is not only an organization that consists of
Philosophy majors and minors. More than that, as a Samahan, it is also a
friendship that is brought together by their love for Philosophy. Samahan aims to foster the rigor of philosophical
discourse and reflective thinking to the university. Samahan also aims, through the help the
Department of Philosophy in continuing the philosophical tradition through
different symposia and the annual release of the student-led publication, Pilosopo Tasyo.
Grids
We are a design organization that
enables aspiring designers and
professionals-to-be by providing opportunities for them to enhance their skills
through training and practice.
United by
creativity, it is our mission to provide exceptional visual communication
solutions to the Ateneo community while building an awareness on the value of
design.
Website
Twitter
Account
Literary Society
LitSoc, or the Literary Society, is an organization founded for, but not limited to, the development of Literature Majors of the Ateneo. Our goal? To indulge everyone's thirst for Literature, and to make sure that along the way, everyone's not just learning, but having fun as well.
With the onset of different media nowadays, LitSoc obsesses itself in understanding and enjoying the different kinds of Literature present in our present day world; by Literature, we don't just mean books or plays, but also movies and shows andmusic, comic books and fandoms.
Here, we hope to complement your interests in any of the particular fields by helping you undertake a critical understanding of what Literature has done to our culture, and even beyond that, how our culture has transformed what we have come to know as Literature.
Regular Projects/EventsAll year round, we hold events known as Powwows, which are themed gatherings in which we talk about specific facets of Literature, be it a kind of medium, genre, sub-genre, or even a specifc book or show. Some of the Powwows we had last year were on Avatar:The Last Airbender, the onset of Fandoms, Feminism in Science Fiction, Zombies, and even one on Apocalyptic Literature. But the biggest LitSoc event, hands down, has got to be Hit Lit Night, where we gather people to hang out with us in a night of relaxation, where we can enjoy food and the open mic where people in and out of Ateneo brimming with talent showcase their art.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/thislitsoc
Twitter:
@ThisLitSoc
Stereotypes by Monica Pontejos
Hipsters, good-for-nothing Ateneans, future beggars of the Philippines, ang mga pasang-awa, and a directionless-bunch-of-students-who-are-in-college-for-the-sake-of-being-in-college: these are the overruling stereotypes against the School of Humanities students of the Ateneo; and taking it from the abovementioned labels, you could probably already tell that of all four schools, we are, what others would consider, “the underdogs”. As much as we are highly extolled for our exceptional artistic abilities, such as writing, drawing, graphic design, acting, singing, and everything else in between; we, in turn, are undermined for our relatively “dull” minds. If we are looking at a true-to-life scenario here, then one probably would not approach a School of Humanities student in the hope of disentangling out-of-this-world mathematical equations. Get the picture?
Prior to entering the Ateneo, I was utterly clueless on the stereotypes there were for each of the four schools — in all honesty; I didn’t even know (or rather, care) how many other schools existed. I deliberately chose to take up AB Interdisciplinary Studies because I felt that it was the closest thing I had to being a double major; as my block mates would say, to be an AB IS major is to have the “best of both worlds”. Know that I desired AB IS because I knew I would seek happiness in pursuing my interests in college. However, when I stepped into the university, I gradually came to realize that my course is notorious for:
- Being the athlete’s cop-out from taking up the most difficult of subjects
- The lost souls with no final destination in mind
- An easy course to get into, and is therefore your easy pass to becoming blue-blooded
In a nutshell, AB IS, or almost every course under the School of Humanities at that, is often perceived to be everything but prestigious and hopeful. So yes, deem me credible enough to be writing about stereotypes because if anything, I certainly know what it feels like to be labeled.
I mean, who wouldn’t feel uneasy knowing that their future rests in and uncertainty all thanks to their college degree? We all want to be Bill Gates, swimming in pool of money. But every now and then, Jessie J knocks on my brain, and reminds me that it’s not about the money.
A few days ago, a friend told me, “They say it’s not about the money; but it is,” for a moment, I felt the need to agree with her as I envisioned a future me, begging on the streets, living on scraps of food; but then I said, “No, it’s not; because money can’t buy you happiness.” (Thank you, Jessie J. I still took those words from your song.)
More often than not, life is about what makes you happy. I’m not too sure about you but I would rather be a middle-class citizen of New York, transforming my innermost thoughts into words and sharing my passion with the world; than be filthy rich, sitting on a desk all day, talking to a piece of paper with a nonsensical Mathematical equation jotted on it, and telling it, “Go solve yourself.” As a BFA Creative Writing major, who also happens to be my friend, once tweeted, “It’s one thing to calculate figures using formulas, and it’s another to create an entire world.”
So stereotypes? Please, forget them. Because the only way to combat a stereotype is not to come up with even harsher words, but to prove to them that they have misjudged you. Completely.
It’s not about belonging to a course beginning with the letters “AB” or “BFA” when others tell you it should not be so. Infuse your faith in the truth that wherever you are now, you are meant to be there; and know that no one can ever make you feel inferior without your consent.
You are an artist, so live up to that title and dream BIG.
________________________________________________________________
Monica Pontejos is an AB Interdisciplinary Studies major in her second year, with tracks in Psychology and Management.
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Untitled - Soft pastel on paper
by Nicole Soriano (II BFA Art Management)
Nicole has been interested in nothing else but the arts, from drawing and painting to playing music. She has always been exposed to only the traditional side of art, but college changed all that when she became an Art Staffer in Heights. She realized that there was more to art than just looking pretty and this only made her passion grow stronger.
Umbrellas At The Ready by Francine Sta. Ana
You are the rain
that cascades from the heavens
and creates dark muddy puddles
for people to slip on.
Your torrents bless the earth
with such a generous amount of water
that people’s windshields blur
and roadway wrecks increase.
Your gray skies are charming
and great sources of depression,
not to mention good fodder
for the latest break-up whine.
All in all, my dear,
you’re the best kind of weather.
Now excuse me while I go
and lock myself indoors.
Syncopation by Francine Sta. Ana
I want to
speak
about jazz, about
the music of the soul,
about the way beats
go
p
u
and
d
o
w
n
and wherever
they
please
and about
how life,
the eternal circus show,
employs a jazz band
to go
along with its acts.
Because
life is
beat
rhythm
song
trip-up
clown act
and no understands it better
than them cats at the bandstand,
them tamers,
masters
of irregularity
because
clown act
trip-up
song
rhythm
beat
is life
and that's how it goes.
I don't want to speak
about jazz.
I
want
to sing.
Space and Spirits by Izo Lopez
The bar was the universe and we were still stargazing. That is what my best friend Judy called watching Stephen drink solo from across the bustling pub. It was christmas eve, 1960, and my friends and I were watching the school’s brightest but most volatile star.
“You know I went up to him during the stargazing.” Amelia mentioned. “He was a right prick.”
“Oh dear, what did he do to you?” Judy asked her, refilling her glass of perry for her.
I didn’t join the conversation—I was still studying Stephen. He sat alone at the bar, his feet resting on the stool’s little step such that his brown socks showed beneath his trousers. He sat straight and unmoving, his eyes lazy but fixed on probably some imaginary equation floating in the air in front of him. Every so often he would lift his drink with two hands and sip carefully as if he were drinking tea.
I knew what had happened with Amelia. I had seen that from a distance too. Our class was stargazing up on the dormitory roofs only a few hours before we hit the pub as a class. There were enough telescopes to share around but Stephen had chosen to sit the activity out and instead rested on a blanket on the ground. He still looked up at the night sky though, with the same focused expression he always wore. This is how I always found Stephen—alone in a quiet space of his own while other people orbited busily around him, ignoring the boy who always chose to not take part.
And then like an asteroid, Amelia broke the serene scene by careening straight towards him. She chattered at him for a bit and then held out her hand. Stephen gave her his school-wide famous do-you-think-I’m-an-idiot icy stare and said—
“’I suppose you think you’re learning when you giggle at the pretty lights.’ He says.” Amelia finished, growing pink at the cheeks. “All I asked him was if he’d like to come join us at our scope and have an easier time of it.”
“The nerve of that arrogant bastard. Where does he get off? Just because he’s a bloody genius and better than the rest of us doesn’t mean he can act better than the rest of us.” Molly said, the only one among us drinking beer.
Judy sighed. “Well Amy you should have known better, really. Everyone knows what he’s like. If only he wasn’t such a git. He’d be dreamy.”
“Why are the smart ones always gits Judy?” Amelia said as she leaned on Judy’s arm. Already she was tipsy.
“Because the darling ones are idiots.” Molly polished off her second pint.
“And the clever nice ones are nancies.” Judy added. She patted Amelia’s head. “There, there, dear. There’s always Danny Greene.”
Amelia’s face went supernova and Molly snorted into her mug. As my friends bickered over the propriety of the size of Danny’s nose and whether or not he was a full minger or just a half-minger, I continued to watch Stephen.
Ever since his first day in the university he’d been an icon. Rumor had it that he’d argued with a professor over the last chapters in the textbook. I was in that class though and the truth was much more marvelous. They hadn’t argued but Stephen had raised a point and our professor was so enamored by the thought that he and Stephen basically just had a chat for the rest of the lesson. The things they were talking about went over our heads but the rest of the class was content watching Stephen get into his full swing.
It was astounding to see a freshman go toe-to-toe with the college’s master of astrophysics but it was more remarkable still to see Stephen talk science with a peer. He lit up like the sun and the rest of us could feel his intelligence emanating from him like radiation. I didn’t know it then but such a display would only occur once in a blue moon when the stars were aligned just right because for the rest of the year Stephen would just be the quiet boy who sat at the back of the room and kept to himself.
Still, the stories spread and his fame increased. He was an enigma—on the one hand utterly brilliant and on the other hand aggressively taciturn. They called him Einstein but only because they could only speak of him through a label. They called him a black hole too because he sucked all the joy out of the space around him. He had no friends and wandered the school grounds alone, casually adrift in space with no trajectory, more concerned with whatever thought was in his head than where he was actually going.
And he always wore the same expression when he was thinking, whether it was in class, on campus, or in that pub. He stared into his cup wih half-lidded eyes, unmoving and perfectly stoic. It wasn’t just the expression of a thinking man—it was the look of someone who took imagining seriously.
“Jane. Jane? Jane!” Judy snapped me out of my reverie. “You’re not drunk already are you?”
I shook my head. I’d barely touched my cup of sparkling cider and it wasn’t even alcoholic.
“Well anyway, Amy is. As usual. We have to get her back into her room or she’ll miss her tram tomorrow.” Judy said while she kept trying to prop Amelia back upright in her seat. “And I won’t envy her even if she catches it. A hangover on a train is a terrible thing.”
“I’ve never had a hangover.” Molly mused.
“That’s because you’ve never been drunk Molly dear, and that’s because you’ve got the fortitude of two sailors.” Judy said. She’d given up and now Amelia was just draped over her shoulders like a shawl.
“And I cuss like one too.” Molly grinned. She leaned over and tipped Amelia easily onto her shoulders instead and began shuffling out of the booth with our drunk friend in tow.
“Right then. Let’s go Jane.” Judy said, gathering up Amelia’s coat and purse for her.
I hesitated. Judy, my best friend since we were children, saw my face and knew what I was thinking. She glanced at me, and then in the direction I’d been staring at all evening.
“What. Honestly. Jane that’s suicide.” Judy said but with a hint of a smirk. She knew my feelings expertly.
I shrugged. It was something I’d decided to do since we were up on that roof.
“Okay. Courage, dear, and good luck then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though.” Judy said as she hugged me goodbye for the night. “C’mon Moll, let’s go.”
“What about Jane?” Molly said. She had Amelia properly slung over her shoulder now like a shot deer and it would have been a sight if half the room were not already completely arsed in their drinks. The pub had suddenly changed from a galaxy of cozy people into an asteroid belt of drunks wobbling about and on the far side was Stephen, calm and cold.
“She’ll tell us everything later, won’t you Jane? Come on now, my parents sent me some wine and I have it stashed in the dormitory. Jane will be fine. She’s a bit mental but she’ll be fine.” Judy ushered Molly out and sent me back a last wink over her shoulder.
I was suddenly alone in the whirling chaos and I wasn’t so sure anymore. With quiet people though, the crazier and more daring the notion, the more resovled we are to do it in the end. I stood up and made my way to the bar.
I tiptoed my way through constellations of sweaty, beer-odoured groups before I made it to the bar and it was like fighting your way through a storm and then arriving at the eye. Suddenly there was space, and a modicum of quiet ahead of me. Stephen sat alone at the bar and his prescence had somehow cleared a ring of peace around him. I found him as I always found him—the star of his own little system, singular in a well of empty space and oblivious to all that swirled around him.
I took a deep breath and sat on the stool next to him. There was a long minute of stillness before he looked up at me with cool eyes.
“You’re that girl’s friend. I’m not going to apologize because she was intruding on my personal space much like you are now.” He spoke calmly, without any spite but without any friendliness either. It was a sentence that was no more than an equation of words to him.
I felt my face flush but I held his gaze. I would have been an idiot not to expect him to be exactly as he always was, so I was prepared. My heart was in my throat but my mind was clear and I knew I had to keep calm if I had any chance at all.
He stared at me long and intently before breaking away first and taking another sip, holding his cup in both hands. “Okay, I’m sorry. Well, not actually but I should at least say it, right? I’m not sorry though, and that’s the truth.”
He swirled his drink. It was hard cider, bubbly like mine but alcoholic, and he swirled it like I did. I knew why he swirled it. He wanted the bubbles to float around the glass because they looked like stars in a whirlpool of space. That was why I would swirl my drink. I’d seen him do it several times that evening and each time he did it I was more convinced that I should, would approach him before the night was over.
“It’s not her fault she’s regular. And it’s not my fault I’m intelligent. Some people they just—“ He looked up at me, and I saw that his eyes were blue and tired. “They talk a lot and point at things a lot but they’d learn so much more if they would just sit down, look, and think. Maybe I just didn’t want to get up. You can tell your friend that if that will make her feel better. I wasn’t trying to be cruel. Not really.”
It was my turn to break gaze. I sipped my cider and felt the sharp sweetness of it roll over my tongue. I took my time. This was a game of attrition. It was a game I’d played before and lost to Judy and we had become fast friends. I was nervous but I knew what I was doing. Loners are all the same, really.
Stephen began to fidget. It was the first time i’d ever seen him be anything more than absolutely stoic. His finger lightly tapped the side of his cup. He knee began to bounce but then it looked as if his foot might slip off of the stool. Oddly, he caught his thigh with a hand on his trouser leg. He saw that I noticed.
“It’s not my fault I’m intelligent.” He said at last. “I can’t talk to people because you people don’t think like I do. You don’t see things the way I do. And it’s not your fault. I’m not trying to be a braggy twat alright? I’m just saying. I’m different. And that makes it hard. And it’s no one’s fault.”
He dug in deep into his drink. He picked his cup up with one hand and on the way back down it slipped and thudded back onto the bartop, a little bit of the drink sloshing over the edge. His hand was left in the space above his glass, trembling ever so slightly. He watched his hand for a silent minute and then glared at it suddenly. Stephen spoke, and the words spilled out of him.
“It’s not easy being this smart. And i know that sounds like such a wanky thing to say but it’s true. I am fairly clever and I’m proud of it. It sets me apart. It sets me apart too much. Do you have any clue at all what it’s like to have no peers? Nobody to talk to who likes to think, but not in the common way but in the right way? Sitting down and being quiet—that’s what I do, and that’s who I am and some people they just don’t get that. And I wish someone would. I don’t want to be a black hole- that’s what they call me right? But I am, that’s exactly what I am and i don’t radiate heat I only take it away. Don’t be near me because I’m cold, I’m so bloody cold and—“
I had reached out and steadied his shaking hand. He drew it away and stared wide-eyed at me with shock. All at once his eyes flashed through an entire spectrum of emotion—surprise, anger, shame, confusion. Then the power of his mind reasserted itself and his face was once again empty. Casually he brough the heel of his palm up to his cheeks and felt the wetness there.
“Hm. It would seem I am drunk.” He stated matter-of-factly.
A ruckus spread around the room and I was terrified for a moment that it was because of Stephen’s outburst but nobody had even noticed our conversation. It was almost midnight and people were preparing to toast christmas day. Patrons were standing up with drinks in hand and checking around for the watch that was most advanced.
While the people in the pub got excited Stephen looked at me with eyes as empty as deep space and I could not tell what he was thinking. I stayed in my seat as he did and looked into my cup. The fizz was nearly gone. I swirled it slowly one last time before finishing it off.
I looked up at Stephen and he had an oddly curious look on his face and a gaze that shifted from my empty cup to me. People were lifting their mugs and tankards and glasses into the air and greeting each other happy holidays because it was past midnight. I smiled and lifted my empty glass a bit in a small toast before setting it back down. Stephen, stunned, tried to do the same but he only used one hand and it looked like the glass would slip again.
I caught it with my other hand by reflex and together we held up the glass between us. I looked into his eyes and instead of an empty abyss I saw something else. As the people cheered in that tiny Oxford pub, the bubbles in the cider swirled along with all the billions of planets and stars that whirled in chorus around an empty but bright universe the center of which was two stools occupied by quiet people. In Stephen’s eyes I saw past the icy darkness of space and saw bright galaxies of thought.
I caught it with my other hand by reflex and together we held up the glass between us. I looked into his eyes and instead of an empty abyss I saw something else. As the people cheered in that tiny Oxford pub, the bubbles in the cider swirled along with all the billions of planets and stars that whirled in chorus around an empty but bright universe the center of which was two stools occupied by quiet people. In Stephen’s eyes I saw past the icy darkness of space and saw bright galaxies of thought.
“Happy christmas, Stephen. My name is Jane.”
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