"Gissing Sining " National TV show - 7/6/08

Our TV appearance on ‘Gising Sining” on NBN Channel 4 did not work out well. It would have been much better to have stayed home and studied instead. We waited for 3 hours and then went on during the last 10 minutes. Our coordinators asked us to write a poem in Filipino introducing ourselves. With some help I finished mine on the bumpy back and forth bus ride to Manila. That was challenging and I’m glad I didn’t suka because of it. We went on and according to alphabetical order I went first. The host urged me to speak and I started to do my poem in Tagalog. I did about half of it and looked up to breathe and saw several camera people giving me the “cut it” signal. I paused, took a breath and stopped with at “Walang panahon, ah…Salamat Po”. I then passed the mic to the next person in our group and so it went. Everyone else got to say their names and where they were from and that was it. That was the culmination of getting the last minute poem assignment the day before and all of our preparation for our spot on national television. I was the single poet from our group. They closed the show with a wildly talented singing group that we had fun listening to in the dressing room.

That was the same day 7/6/08 that AFAP had the big story in the Manila Times.

The reporter didn’t know what to do with my vegetable oil story, although I told her about it at length. So she just left it out. Too bad I guess, but I’m learning that getting press coverage is a lot about perseverance and not relying much on the press to get your message out. I think the exposure was good for the program though.

After the TV show we went out to dinner and performed our poems for each other. That was very satisfying. I believe that the world can always send challenges, but what matters more is how I respond to those situations. “It’s not about them, it’s about us and what we do now.” I keep saying. Or another version is “ it’s not about what they do to us, it’s about how we respond to it.” After all, my reaction is the only thing I truly have control over. So, we had a poetry jam for ourselves and that was beautiful.
I did learn new words- like pamamaraan- future.

The next day we had a very long midterm that I was inadequately prepared for- usually the case given the challenge and the amount of time available to study.

There’s a uniquely Filipino way of doing things that I’m learning about. It’s about many different supervisors telling you different things and then changing their minds randomly. Hard to predict or plan with this dynamic. You’re not supposed to directly say no or confront people- especially supervisors or elders, so instead you say ok and maybe and then do something different later. It’s something I’m trying to understand, although it feels dishonest to say to people. My US bias is coming into direct conflict with the cultural norm here.