words well up from the fullness or emptiness of the moment
Opening Remarks | 8 Sep 2017 | Hotel Jen | ‘Japan and East Asia in the Midst of Change: Carving a Path for the Region’ International Studies Conference It is my great honor and pleasure to welcome you all to the conference. I’m on my first week as the new dean of DLSU’s College ofContinue reading “‘Planetary Thinking’ on Japan and East Asia in the Midst of Change”
2020 Festival of Women’s Plays | Women Playwrights International Philippines Forum 6-8 March 2020 | Cultural Center of the Philippines Brief Introduction: Day 3 Panel — Katarungan at Pagkapantay-pantay ng Kababaihan, Katarungan at Pagkapantay-pantay sa Dulaan ‘The theatre, it is universally recognised, is always among the most conservative of institutions.’ This is from a 1911Continue reading “Justice and Equality for Women in Theatre”
Fourth International Conference of the International Council for Historical and Cultural Cooperation – Southeast Asia and the 2017 Philippine Historical Association Annual Conference, 15 September 2017 | DLSU Historical thinking is always a retrospective looking back, ‘a retroactive mode of thought’ that is really a thinking of the contemporary, of the now – ‘conducted inContinue reading “Closing Remarks at ‘The Malay World: Connecting the Past to the Present’”
Thank you very much for inviting me to speak here today and share a bit about my own pandemic experience. It’s a pleasure to be able to connect with you again even if only virtually. At the very least I got to dress up and put on lipstick like I would for an ordinary occasionContinue reading “Taking Care of our Mental Health during the Pandemic and ECQ, 28 April 2020 Webinar, Closing Remarks”
This is the first of several brief talks I gave which I’d like to share to a bigger audience through this blog. When we have guests here for a lecture, I always imagine the event being a gathering to hear stories and what immediately comes to mind is Walter Benjamin’s essay on the storyteller. InContinue reading “Opening Remarks at ‘Reimagining Cultural Citizenship’ Lecture”
We call her Peps. My daughter and her cousins call her Lola Fe. Today she is turning 66, so we had spaghetti for breakfast and ordered Jollibee chicken joy for lunch. We wanted pansit palabok and pichipichi but Amber does not deliver. But what do we do except say ‘sayang’. Can’t go to the mall.Continue reading “A gift of presence”
Each day my soul ascendsConstitution HillRight outside my windowAll rock and clingy brushI follow the well worn pathsWith my eyesSaying I will go todayI will go today I am crazy to waitFor youYou won’t waitLike the hard face of rockYou just areAnd I can’t seem to beFor I am and stuck with amOnly my soulContinue reading “Together Apart”
right here, right now