mid-week lull

It's a rainy Wednesday here in Metro Manila so it's a good thing I decided to rest today, stay home and relax after almost four days of being away out of town.

That new header picture was where I was:

first time to see a Philippine beach this year

That's White Rock beach in Subic, outside SBMA I should add. Dati pa siya, right? I've been to SBMA several times during my, ahem, youth (my pop managed the phone system set-up during Gordon's time, right after the Americans left the naval base), but not here in White Rock.

Well, I was trying to post this one:

first day beach view from the resort area

But it won't fit. So there.

Will retire this one for now:

dried leaves in a New Jersey backyard, March 2010

Yes, I took that picture. It's not part of some generic template, mind you.

Anyway, the weekend getaway was fun, although it's not exactly a vacation. I was there to conduct a video production for advocacy workshop with a group of media practitioner friends. It was part of my old women's media NGO office Isis International Manila's activist school program where Asia-Pacific and Filipino women NGO workers stay here for a few weeks and learn theory and praxis stuff focusing on specific advocacies. This workshop's theme was Re-examining Gender-Based Violence, as I learned that GBV is the new term that somehow replaced VAW, or violence against women.

So I taught the production and advocacy lectures while my friend and colleague X taught the editing lecture. We subdivided the participants to three groups and each was expected to create their own film there. And they did, under our supervision and coaching.

I love this photo:

me supervising the third team's shoot,
with L-R Bushra from Pakistan, Yuen from China,
and Pratima from Nepal

Looks like a movie still of a Bollywood film, thanks to Bushra's South Asian looks there hehe (photo documentation by my friend/teammate Teta).

So that was where I was. And to tell you frankly, I really, really, really love this engagement. It's everything I want, ideally, out of a job: teaching media production (especially filmmaking) to people with an advocacy bent, doing (women's rights) advocacy work (although I also like LGBT rights, of course) while getting paid (even if it's not that big; I make exceptions for my types of advocacy), and being with like-minded media/arts-oriented friends. All in one.

That was last weekend.

But this gig is not yet over. As my post title says, this is the mid-week lull. Tomorrow, the video production participants will finalize their films, polish their works and learn extra about DVD file conversions and stuff. Then on Friday, there will be a launch of their works, the video prod peeps and the participants who joined the other workshop in Subic, the theater production peeps. That one was handled by Mae Quesada from PETA.

From our rough presentations yesterday before we left, the feedback and reactions from both groups were good, and also inspiring. The new sistahs at Isis were happy, and I'm feeling they want us to do this again. Well actually, they do, as their mother hen told me already hehe. Man, I am so there! Anytime, I told them. Anytime. Yeah, I really live for these things. That's why I hope to do more.
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It's also my break today from starting school. Sure, sometimes it's fun to teach the young ones about filmmaking, but then sometimes the advocacy part gets lost on them. I guess the usual college student is more self-centered these days more than before. And this is what saddens me. Some are afraid of being labeled as activists, some evade calling their works feminist, and some are just plainly apathetic about what goes on outside their comfy internet-wired bedrooms. But still, I teach, and I won't leave teaching until I somehow affect at least some of them about how to treat the world fairly, equitably and humanely while doing the craft and art both they and I love.

I guess teaching gives me some kind of positivity, some hope that future citizens would be better than present adults, since some adults have been giving me some shit lately even if I am already avoiding them. Hey, that's another blog post, bleh. But we start all that acad stuff next week, during the second week of class, during the time I know most of them are done with their enrollment stuff. I don't want to teach a class that's not yet ready. So I'll see them next week.

As for now, I'll just chill and write here, post some stuff, face other work engagements, and relax.

and we rest