Songs to ride the winter cold and Dumaguete

I don't know how or why but I started playing classic Christmas songs, say like "Chestnuts roasting in the open fire...", or "Have yourself a merry little christmas.." and I couldn't help but feel emotional - eyes brimming with tears and all. I mean, I never experienced a real white christmas until now. I'm from the south of the Philippines, which is equivalent to living in Timbuktu for most people, including those from the NORTH of the Philippines. And honestly, I cannot find a part of me that doesn't feel happy when I think about Christmas, especially those times, as a child, I celebrated together with family and relatives in Dumaguete City, my personal Prague.

Food Cravings

In the last week I have seriously grown more lustful towards good food and I mean - yummy gastronomical bliss food. Unfortunately my desires have shifted from Italian to Filipino flavors. Maybe I'm being nostalgic - no, I am seriously nostalgic. Just the thought of breakfast at home, hearing the chickens cockadoodledoo, the smell of burning wood, warm beams of sunshine straight from the sky to the window to the table, glowing, perfect. home.

I first arrived in Italy sometime in February early this year. We went to visit a friend's family house and there I was introduced to authentic Italian cuisine - by authentic Italians, no less! Lucky enough, the first pasta dish was Pasta al Pesto (my favorite), a rich and creamy mix of freshly ground basil leaves and pine nuts with grated parmegiano reggiano. Its exactly like what it should be but with a twist - she mixed in some potato slices and string beans with the pasta, boiling them together and on a plate they create a creamier consistency, marrying the flavors of fresh pesto. Magical.

I spent a month in Italy before going back to Asia for a 3-month grant in Singapore. There I would experience yet another kind of gastronomical bliss that would take me all over Asia in one place. I don't know if writing about this is good for my sanity but I do know that it helps keep my love alive. My love for home, for its people, for the diversity of flavors available around the world. :) oooooh flaaavoooorsss

10 cents for Love

So, while spending some weeks packing and moving and somehow putting up a shop. I was secretly wishing that by some divine force everything would suddenly fall into place just because I was loving what I did and because I was chill and spontaneous and, you know, cool (even more so after my Facebook deactivation, but not anymore after my recent re-activation. ah well.) Things didn't really turn out so smooth after all and, as all transitions, lotsa adjustments and bumps along the way. I had to reassess my judgment and FB snobbery.

Maybe the winter doesn't sit so well with me. Maybe I'm a tropical person freezing somewhere in the northern hemisphere feeling just a tad bit silly I'm not wearing something appropriate (bringing cotton sweaters when wool would've done a better job). Maybe I'm pregnant. oh man.

This handmade pendant thingymajee is an assemblage of trinkets from home, singapore, and italy. three of my last stops. who knows what'll be of it, maybe just another memory.

KaterinaBonVora is Alivvvvee

I did it. I put up an Etsy account. SHameless... and who can hide from a siopao face like mine? SIOPAO! haven't had one in ages! maybe its all for the best! :)

Alright, here is KaterinaBonVora Live on Etsy!

A move towards financial independence and celebrating creative expression!

Friends, countrymen, Romans - how does that go again? Well anyway, people of the world, here are my babies, my loves, romances, affairs and whatnots.

No need to commit! No need to pledge! Just share the love and move on your lighted path.

Kat :)

The Birds

Its been a long time since I last worked with a brush and I feel like sometime soon, we shall reunite. I can't believe that I did this piece 5 years ago. That means I'm much older now. and. well. hmmm.. the BIRDSsssss...

Sleater-Kinney via dream state

The Woods. Sleater-Kinney's last and final encore.

Guacamole Remix

Summer recipe thats yummy anytime. :)

from Florence to Forlì (plus Renaissance geekery)

We thought we'd move to Florence next year for university but as it turns out, Forlì might be the best option considering both university and affordability. Florence, of course, is the home and the root of Renaissance. Its every history/art geek's paradise. Remember the Medici? Infamous and influential dynasty of power who helped bring forth the masterpieces of Michelangelo (Sistine chapel, David), Botticelli (The Birth of Venus), Galileo (debunker of earth as the center of the solar system) and Leonardo da Vinci (uh, duh - Mona Lisa). Its a long naughty history thats worth the read - or watch.

Medici, the Godfather's of the Renaissance is a fascinating documentary on this.

Do the Boogaloo!

Its autumn and its about time to mix our greens with some browns. FUNNAGE!

Casette is Dead

dream my dears, dream

looking forward to next weekkkk...zz

Language is the voice

After 3 months of resettling, still unsettled, I find myself back again into this blank page.

I made some friends, learned some new words in a different language, and been pushing the envelope wherever needed. I've never really experienced too much inadequacy (except for the times when I intentionally drowned myself into deep sedated depression) and for the first time I understand what the "deafening silence" means. What I really mean is, when in a foreign country where the majority speak something else other than standard english, not being able to have real decent conversations is a true disability for anyone who loves people and stories. Even when I can be zen and enjoy the infinite quiet of the soul sitting in lotus position, theres a loss in not being able to connect with people within your proximity. I recall describing it in the beginning, "as if I lost my voice."

Because helplessness doesn't help, I took it as it was. The inevitable final examinations for a class I've been skipping for the longest time - patience insisted I do what I'm told. Lord knows how ugly that can be especially when you start snapping at the one person you can honestly talk to. "So forgive me, love" goes the song. Its nothing personal, I just hate it when I don't get what I want. Call it reflex of the little kid in the toyshop pointing at the useless barbie doll she thinks she needs. Well in this case, I do really need to learn and speak Italian, fast - like, if I could do a matrix jedi mind trick and install Italian on my system, I would. But instead I get to work on a real challenge.

Language is power. Its really something to behold. Sheesh.

(loss of words)

Fuhhreeeedumm

I was often taught to keep my shameless positivity (and extra enthusiasm for all things beautiful and experiential) to myself, lest I overwhelm the other -or worse, I "disturb" the other (inversely, I be taken as the naive sacrificial virgin). Nobody likes to be shaken or stirred and everyone wants to keep things temperate, a way for staying in control and keeping the boundaries. but, and i mean BUTT, theres no other way to be free than to allow oneself this possibility - laugh for chrissakes, cry, notice those tense muscles contract then relax. Temperance will come naturally without your need to control anything.

*note to self*

From Sardegna

thu 1:53am

in the face of sea, or of the shore where my feet can go and sink in the wet sand and occasionally get covered with froth, in the face of what i always thought was God or holy, something that would immediately transport my body-mind into this space of blessedness and appreciation and quiet that everything that was complex and laced with errors would, by some magic means, dissapear, as if dreamt or imagined and then forgotten, washed away gently into the horizon

Why being away only brings me closer

Baraha ng Pilipino: Arcana Mayor (Tarot of the Filipino: Major Arcana) by Brenda Fajardo

"To create reality, an artist must first have the force to kill it. But instantly, the fragments draw together again, in love with each other, seeking one another, coming together with desire, with the obscure presentiment of the new life to which they are destined." - Francesco de Santis

Other Views from Elsewhere

Work from 2008's show Other Views from Elsewhere. Postcards between the lovers Maria and Pepito.

Part 1 (front and back of postcard)

I think! --Beta Version

*blink blink*

How dare you persecute me when I start a sentence with "I think". Its not enough to look away just because I lack references. Them, the referred, referring other referrals, in this long sequence of he said/she said that goes all the way back to the beginning of time -or documentation, the printing press, gossip? One idea led to the next, got passed down to the children and so forth. SO, aside from the tried and tested ideas-turned-facts (e.g. gravity, science) are we now completely incapable of manufacturing our own ideas on things? So everything can be explained through science, and if anyone feels sad about that fact, they just consult a psychologist and get themselves FIXED? Nobody seems to remember how everything that has been conceived began in the human brain as a mere musing by its first thinker/artist. Sure hard work followed but it wasn't the work that defined the concept, though it helped refine it.

Little brave tooth saves the day

BACK with a toothache from hell. I'm to blame. A week of crunching into all sorts of nuts and dried wolf-berries and trying all sorts of combinations of curry, spicy, gingery, Singaporean fusion madness. My tooth has been complaining. A bit softly last week, and now screaming.

Letter from the Apartment

Dearest Kat,
What have you been doing lately? I see you from a distance and what I see is blurry. Are you really there or am I just imagining things? It rained really hard today for the first time since you landed. It made everything around look bluish. The winds blew and it was good. Speaking of which, some of the indoor plants need to be watered except for the cactus which requires watering only once a month. Also, the singing bowl has been sitting quietly beside the bed for some time and some books on the desk are waiting to meet you. Have you thanked the windows lately? They've been so generous with light in the last week. Light, by the way, warms your bed in the afternoons while your at work, effectively cheering up the sheets in their state of disarray. Some things you might not care to notice while you get lost in the motions but it doesn't take much to pause, regroup, and reitinerate (by the way, I invented that word. It means to reconsider itineraries). Everyone appreciates a bit of acknowledgement. And anyone acknowledged is another beam of light through that window. So don't forget to water the plants and hug the sheets.


Love,
Apartment

From Italy to Singapore - Life is Beautiful

This won't be a report of all the amazing things I found and the mind-blowing experiences I've had in Italy, nor will it be a reflection on my first travel experience abroad, how I was in denial and in shock, and how fast it all was before I moved elsewhere again, back home in Manila with a day to pack and the next moment in Singapore, excited with a runny nose, warm with fever, managing to reassemble my atoms to its proper positions - no, not about any of that. =)

Insert Title Here

** Notepad rambles sometime after quitting my job, getting married, and being alone again - around December 2009 **