Feather and Red Star

I would have wanted as my first tattoo the traditional tattoo from Kalinga etched on my back by Apo Fang-ud herself. But it is very difficult to spare more than 12 hours of travel and a couple more of hiking. I still am not in Sagada for my fieldwork, and the possibility of it seems blurry as of the moment.  I have decided to reverse my  plan and go for the machine tattoo method first.


This is my version of the mother and child, my elder sister and her firstborn.

Mock up only; not yet the real thing

My sister's name is Angel. Born only a year apart, we grew up very close with each other. Elders refer to us as kambal or twins. We always wore the same clothes, we attended the same school until elementary, we always played together as kids and were punished together by our mother. Though we attended different schools in college, we were very close we'd meet up after school to eat out and watch movies. She got married in 2008 and I missed her so much the first week she wasn't home. I tried my best to still be there for her so I made it a point to look after her especially on the latter part of her first pregnancy.


I thought of a wing (angel's wing) but over a conversation with friends, a feather seems to be the better option. This one friend told a story about another friend of his who believes in Angels and once dreamt of holding on to the Angel's wings until a feather was plucked. Upon waking up, inside his/her clasped hand is a feather.


Dreaming of feathers means a desire to achieve a goal or overcome a challenge while the feather itself "deal with ascension and spiritual evolution to a higher plane." Different cultures have believed the feather to be a symbol of connectedness to higher wisdom and spirituality.

• Feathers were worn by Native American Chiefs to symbolize their communication with Spirit, and to express their celestial wisdom. 

• As a Celtic symbol meaning, the feather was worn by Druids in the form of ornate feathered robes. Celtic Druids donned these robes in ceremonies to invoke the sky gods and gain knowledge of the celestial realm. It was believed that the feathered cloak along with the presence of the sky gods would allow the Druid to transcend the earthly plane and enter the ethereal realm.

• The Egyptians believed that feathers were symbolic of sky gods too. Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of justice, would weigh the hearts of the newly dead in the underworld against the weight of a feather to determine the worthiness of his or her soul.

• In Christianity feathers represented virtues. In fact, an image of three feathers were made into signet rings - each feather symbolizing Charity, hope, and faith. These rings were worn as a symbol of a virtuous soul - they were also used as wax seals. 

Source: http://www.whats-your-sign.com/symbol-meaning-of-feathers.html

The dream interpretation of feathers mean travel or the ability to move freely in life. Now I know why the typical "Bohemian" look is characterized by the use of feather accessories. According to the dictionary, the term bohemian (n) is defined as A restless vagabond; -- originally, an idle stroller or gypsy (as in France) thought to have come from Bohemia; in later times often applied to an adventurer in art or literature, of irregular, unconventional habits, questionable tastes, or free moral. A bohemian is also described as  a nonconformist writer or artist who lives an unconventional life or someone who refuses to conform to established standards of conduct

I never wanted to call attention to myself and I often feel awkward about other people saying what they think about me. I'm not into achieving a certain look, or creating an image of myself simply because I'm one person who don't like to be noticed so there's absolutely no point in image-making for myself. Nonetheless, I have found people branding me as such: artist, unconventional, explorer, free-spirit. And that was what my friend said about the importance of character when thinking of an image to symbolize yourself. Being one of those who truly knows me, he said the feather symbol suits my character well.

Aside from the feather, a huge part of my character is captured by the image of a simple red 5-point star.

According to Wikipedia, the five-pointed red star, a pentagram without the inner pentagon, is a symbol of communism. It is sometimes understood to represent the five fingers of the worker's hand, as well as the five continents. A lesser known suggestion is that the five points on the star were intended to represent the five social groups that would lead Russia to communism: the youth, the military, the industrial labourers, the agricultural workers or peasantry, and the intelligentsia. It was one of the emblems, symbols, and signals representing the Soviet Union under the rule of the Communist Party, along with the hammer and sickle.

Very few people know this side of me. For this reason, I sometimes feel that I live a double life. It is something I can't just casually discuss to anyone. Even if I am not actually "there", I still want to be reminded to keep hoping that one day, a hundred flowers shall bloom.

Aside from that symbolism, my firstborn niece is named Tala (star). She is the first in the family. The first grandchild, the first niece, the first of the third generation. And I love this child so much. So I offer this symbol to her and to the whole family as well.

I think tattooing is an exercise in self-awareness. It makes you think and reflect on who you are, who you live for, your motivations for living and reasons for being for it to be truly meaningful. For these reasons, I am confident that I will never regret my first ink.

Blueprint

I am here in a coffeeshop and across me looks like a group of young architects ogling over a blueprint. Whenever I have an encounter with architects, I always remember him.

I did not stay long enough to see him get his license. If only we parted nicely, I would have congratulated him. Because in my heart of hearts, I am truly proud of him for making it.

Fan-girling

Okay, so now I'm officially a Lee Min Ho fan-girl. Gotta love the height/stature, cheek bone and jaw line, the prominent Adam's apple, and the pretty face. Oh, the pretty face.

And I don't even care if his face is the work of nature or doctors. If the latter, then this is one of those moments when the end justifies the means.

Episode 6 and going

Wala na... hooked na naman ako.

The perils of being small

I've been co-running our very own baby research agency since 2007. I fell in love with the nitty gritty details of running a company, of working with your own salaried employees and freelancers, of negotiating with clients with the full knowledge of how the project is priced down to the last centavo.

As a small research agency, we don't have much of the leeway big agencies have when it comes to profit. I've been to one and the profit margins are really exorbitant (up to nearly four-fold). It is reasonable, really, knowing that they have higher salaries from the directors down to the RAs. Plus they rent in prime office buildings. This allows them to baby their clients to the core all in the name of client servicing - a concept I so loathe. This means buying them Starbucks, ordering food for them, serving them with drinks and chips. My colleagues call this babysitting, only they're not babies but annoying corporate executive brats.

Compared to them, we have lower operational expenses (but not necessarily lower salaries!). But all in all, we offer rock-bottom rates. For instance, in one project bidding that we won, a mole revealed to me that our cost is not even half as much as the cost of the next lowest bidder.

But does this give any client any right to abuse us? Abuse: asking more of what's stipulated in the contract. Do they even know what additional unaccounted for expenditures mean to small agencies like us? They're actually asking us to cut our own profit.

I woke up to a call of this kind of client. I almost lost it with her on the phone. It's just a small project, not even a full-service research. But she insists on some additional work outside of what was agreed upon. We argued for a few minutes, and told her I'll get back to her.

I consulted my partner if we can spend for this out of our own pocket. Okay. At the end of the day, its the thought that they can just go around the contract like 5-year old kids breaking down inside the store that is most annoying.

We decided to comply. They say the customer is always right. And I hate this. This much stress for P2,000. Seriously?!?

It's a wrap: Part 2

Speaking of dramas that wrapped up, Angelito also ended its 5-month run last Friday. For the record, the finale episode was a let down. The lines did not kill, flashback overload, montage overload, and just too much airtime spent on eye contact between Angelito and Rosalie. Parang para matapos nalang at ibigay ang kilig na pinakahihintay ng audience kahit wala namang laman. And the Hongkong Disneyland conversation was, to use an overused and anoying phrase, an epic fail.

I wish she could have said herself that it was him all along that she has loved. The only time a line made sense was Rosalie saying that she fears she might Angelito if they get back together.

Apparently, there are talks of making a sequel. I though That would be nice. Papanoorin ko parin. Haha!

SIDE NOTE: Teka, bakit puro teleserye at Korean drama ang entries ko lately? It must have been due to the week of finales. I would have wanted to write about my aroma craze and other things, but let's save that for another day. For now, naririnig ko na tumitilaok ang mga manok ng kapitbahay.