Ship of Paper

What to do? What to do? At every opportunity I could get, I would ponder to myself to escape the monotony of the moment. Years ago, I always despised boredom, staring into space when I could be doing other things, maybe play, do my homework, or watch movies. Boredom made me feel like I was trapped in a basement prison with a tiny window with wooden bars where droplets from street puddles would occasionally drip and beams of moonlight would break the darkness all the while I was shackled and chained to the wall. Boredom to me was a scalding hot iron that was set at the highest setting that was being pressed against my skin burning it until bone was bare. It felt like I was a blob of flesh unable to move while vultures gnaw and tear at my skin and the only scream I could muster up was one only I could hear. As a youngster, I would walk to hell and back if it meant I could escape the island of boredom. I truly hated boredom with a passion, far more than any normal person would. Thus, I made it my mission to always keep my eye out around my environment for anything to do, be it play games, hang out with my friends, or my personal holy grail of boredom cyanide: Television.

“Speed, I am speed,” as Lightning McQueen says this line in complete darkness, an intriguing feeling within me began to build up. Then Lightning’s car hauler starts opening up slowly revealing a stadium at night full of bright lights and the hurrahs of thousands of cars excited for the upcoming race. Then I see Racecars zooming past at breakneck speeds while their engines rev louder and louder as they continue to accelerate. They are going so fast to the point that all we see of them are whirring blurs. All the while an upbeat song plays in the background that adds to the liveliness of the scene. What I just described is the opening scene of the 2006 movie “Cars,” one of my favorite movies to this day. That opening scene is a great example on why movies are a great source of entertainment; they are able to tell compelling narratives through visuals and sound. Through movies, you get to see worlds and places that are fantastical. Whether it be a world with anthropomorphic cars or trees of spiraling cotton-like material, the possibilities are endless. Then you get to hear sounds that give ambience to its respective world. The rustle of leaves in the wind, the thud of a punch landing on a boxer’s face, dialogue that made the characters seem real, the sounds that movies present pull you in deeper into a siren-like trance that engulfs you, sometimes even as the credits start to roll. And lastly you get to see that world come to life through movements: you see cars moving, people running, birds flying, and plants swaying. Movies became a favorite pastime of my past self for all these reasons. I always had the opportunity to read books from my school and from my older sister who liked reading. But I thought to myself back then that why spend effort in reading words when I could be watching a movie where stories could be seen and heard. Hence, as a kid I never really got into reading at all, and if I recall correctly, I don’t think I ever even read a book during my entire tenure in high school. But my lack of exposure and negative belief regarding books would all change course during my first year in college at Ateneo de Davao University when I met someone special.

 Love truly is the most infamous of thieves. It steals everything from you: who you are, what you like, what you dislike; love steals what makes you you and leaves behind a changed version of who you once were. Fortunately, and unfortunately, I happen to become one of its victims during my first year at Ateneo de Davao University. I had met a girl whose hobby reverberated around books. And so, in an effort to become closer with her I started reading books. And lo and behold, I started having a lot of fun while reading, something that my past self would’ve been flabbergasted by.  When I was immersing myself with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo one fine afternoon, I suddenly came to a realization that I was completely wrong about books. Books are not boring, they are not effort spent wasted, they are not empty words, they tell stories that gives you butterflies in your stomach, shivers up your spine, involuntary smiles on your face — they give you the same emotions that movies do. Books were never inferior to movies at all, both mediums simply tell great stories in different ways and I simply refused to explore that world for I already had something I always believed to be superior. Movies show you a fantastical story through your sight and hearing, but books bring that story into the deepest study of your mind showing you that world not in your sight but in your imagination. As a kid, I would do just about anything to avoid being bored. It is regrettable then, that despite this conviction, I ignored the ship made out of pages that could also have carried me away from the island of monotony. And although the love that I had for that certain person had long since set sail to distant lands, the passion written in the hull of the ship of pages she had constructed for me will continue to carry me on to adventures forevermore.

         I explored through the adventures of many people, from the dramatic hidden life of a Hollywood star to the epic saga of a magically gifted boy from Athens in search of his true lineage. But one thought crept into my mind whilst reading stories, “would I ever have the opportunity to write great stories of my own?” But due to the workload that I had in my course in Ateneo, I had no choice but to put that thought into the back shelf of my mind to gather dust and cobwebs. When suddenly, our financial situation had become a newly-established border, a border that saw me get deported from Ateneo. Thus, I had to search high and low for a new university to study in. While I was trying to get out of the pit of uncertainty, a strange and unfamiliar figure reached its hand out and I grabbed it. Once I was able to climb out of that pit, I saw myself standing in front of the campus of UP Mindanao.

         Having transferred to UP Mindanao and taking BA English in Creative Writing opened up an opportunity for me. A chance to rummage through the dusty shelves in the back of my mind and locate a certain thought which I had thought would have remained there indefinitely. The desire of writing my own stories gave me a reason to pursue this course and try my best in it. And throughout the semester, I have tried honing my writing skills through the different writing assignments and their respective revisions.

I really tried digging deep with the food essay into my family’s history, but I ended up overromanticizing my food essay — it was clouded with nostalgia of better times and I believe made my essay feel rather ingenuine. For the revision however, I had dug way deeper into our history and I actually set foot on the negative aspects of our family, I was finally trying to confront the demons of my past which I have ignored for far too long. I no longer took shelter in isolation but ventured into the darkened forest of our history. In the end, I was able to transform my essay from being overly sweet to having a more complex, nuanced, and realistic flavor.

For our poetry assignment, me and my groupmate initially brainstormed and researched for possible controversial Filipino politicians. After a hot minute of research, we decided on the enigmatic spearheaders of the Mamasapano massacre: former President Benigno Aquino III and PNP Chief Alan Purisima. For the writing of the poem, my partner handled the first quintain which set up the question, while I tackled the second quintain which answered the question. However, the Mamasapano Massacre happened years ago and the former PNP Chief was not really well known. In light of that, we decided to put the spotlight on a different politician for our revision: Senator Ronald Dela Rosa. Our revised poem focused on whether or not he deserved or had the expertise for the position he was elected in.

For the letter from mark, my work was rather minimal: I only added minor revisions to the letter my groupmate made. I was primarily focused on the script for the online class presentation of our group’s animated video. The dialogue was written in such a way as though Nora and Mark were having a conversation despite them being thousands of miles apart and only communicating through letters. This approach suited the animated video’s format, which placed both of them in different panels but those panels were side by side feigning the illusion of a real-time conversation.

Having learned in my food essay revision on how to dig deeper into my past and revisit things that I would have rather hidden away primed me for writing my flash fiction entry. I was able to dig deep immediately during my first entry and rediscovered a memory of trauma that made me realize just how unfair the world can be. That initial entry did not lack the core substance of the loss of innocence what it did lack however was the complexity of the main character of the story. So in lieu of my professor’s critiques, I added paragraphs which allowed the main character to be more fleshed out and less basic.

The airplane skit assignment had honestly given me a bit of trouble. The script was primarily in Bisaya, a dialect that I am not fluent in. I had to rely heavily on the scriptwriting of our groupmates who were fluent in the language. That’s not to say that I had no part in the making of the dialogue. My efforts were primarily focused on the brainstorming of ideas for the story itself, the scenes, the development, the dramatic question, the inciting incident, and the climax.

         With where I currently stand, I still see myself far from being considered a good writer. I have trod many a path throughout my life, but this road of ink, pen, and stories is one that I desire to continue to trudge even if I had only just begun. There will be many stumbling blocks I have to face while traversing this avenue. But one thing is for sure: the passion lies blazing, the program continues teaching, and this aspiring writer continues striving. So as long as I have pen, paper, laptop, or keyboard, I will continue to sail this ship of paper to distant lands.