Forward Flight: February 2019

Monday, February 18, 2019

February 18th, 2019

February 19^th, 2019

Hello everyone!

By the time this post I will have taken my Teacher Aptitude test and I will be sure to tell you all what my results are once I get them! But! I’m so excited! I want to tell you guys about an opportunity that came up! UNP was invited to trade students for one week with a university in Thailand! If I can manage the funds then I can go and I can show you guys Thailand!

Of course, I’ll need to take my skin into account and culture. I’ll be around a university so I’ll go in what I usually wear at school. I talked to the person who is in charge of international connections and asked him what I need to do to connect him and Angelo State University! I’ll need to call the school and hopefully this can be worked out. There are many Filipinos in San Angelo so it won’t be as difficult for Filipinos to adjust since there’s already a community built for them!

I don’t know if I mentioned this at any point of time but while I was there in San Angelo I was part of the Asian American Association of Woman. They’re a nonprofit organization that promotes Asian culture! The organization originally allowed only women to join but now it’s possible to be a male a join! When I was a member I mainly did anything my sister asked me to.

For those of you who want to check out their website here’s the link.

As I mentioned in my last post, there is a culture festival going on and I’m in the middle of it. Literally. To the right of my apartment I have the carnival, to the left is the food court and concerts, and behind the building they had their version of a Rodeo. Now, sad to say I didn’t go to all the events. I didn’t spend much time there except for the trade fair, carnival, and food court. But, this apparently happens every year so I probably have another chance to go next year!

I’ll collect some articles and share them with you all! This weekend I went to Labayug, Sison, Pangasinan. One of my friends had to attend a funeral and I told him that I would be willing to go with him to Pangasinan because I also have family there. His family is from Bayambang which is an hour and half away from my family’s place.

Labayug: It is impossible to see ALL my family in one visit. Even if I stayed for longer than a weekend I don’t think I’d meet all my family. This time I went to drop off my Aunties’ pasalubong (gift). It takes six-seven hours to get to Sison from Vigan. I absolutely can’t stand long rides like that but at least I was on a good bus. It was a little difficult sitting with my friend because he has to have the vent turned away from him in order to not get motion sickness but I need the vent open in order for me to not get motion sickness. Luckily, we both managed.

The next day I woke up a little late. I had issues sleeping because Labayug is near a cement factory and that effects my ability to breath. That’s one of the downfalls of being there. It’s also hotter in Labayug. Vigan City is nothing like Labayug heat and I’m thankful for that.

The only thing I managed to do was go see my cousin/best friend and meet/remeet people at church. I went in late but that was okay. The pastor picked me out easily and welcomed me to the church as a visitor. My dad is well known in Labayug outside of the fact that most everyone is family so I was praised for being there. I have a few pictures that I took. I’m sorry that I haven’t been scheduling pictures for y’all but I’ll be sure to do that in my free time!

It was tiring but we were able to get back to Vigan the second day before 8pm. It was nice to have someone I know go with me to Labayug. Soon, I will visit my family in San Emilio. I landed in the Philippines the first day of school so I had to go straight from Manila to Vigan and that bus trip was awful.

Let’s see… Kanawedan (Culture festival). I got a henna tattoo! I’ll post a picture of that. The artist was really cool. He spoke more Tagalog (Filipino) than Ilocano which was a challenge for me but I know that I’ve come far in learning these two languages because I was able to communicate with him and he was able to communicate with me. I never thought I’d be able to understand someone and they would be able to understand me yet we both cannot speak the other’s language very well. So he was talking to me in Filipino while I was responding in English/Ilocano.

I’ve been getting into the habit of not taking pictures because I want to live in the moment around me but I also want to share it with you all. I have all these photos that are sitting in my phone and my computer yet I haven’t scheduled them! I need to!

My language progress: It’s weird but I can understand a lot more now than I did when I came here. I can respond in Ilocano more but I’m nowhere near fluent. I can write and read better in Tagalog because that’s the language that is required for my classes. I can understand Tagalog but unless a person is looking at me and making a point that they’re talking to me I tend to not hear it. Information overload you know?

As for Ilocano… I can recognize it and speak some of it but only enough for small conversation. I can’t read it very well but that’s because most of the words are like ten characters or more. I mentally skip over it when I pass by it and I try not to but half the time I don’t realize that I’m doing it.

I was sick this week and to my surprise I was able to respond to people in Ilocano and English but if someone speaks to me in Tagalog my brain goes, “Huh. What?” Then it completely forgets what it’s trying to do. Lol.

This year I’m going to try to do my best to keep up with this so be prepared to check on my blog more often because there’ll be more content soon! Thank you guys! Don’t be afraid to message me and keep up with me.

Thanks again everyone!

DJ/Cho/Nar

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This will send me an email with your questions you don’t have to leave a name. I will post the answer to the blog!

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This is mainly for communication so go ahead, add me. Message me every once in a while so that I remember who you are. Otherwise, I'll delete you at the end of the year when I clear through my facebook lol.

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I follow anyone who follows me! This is mainly pictures of where I go!

Wattpad

If I don’t write a post here there’s probably a chance that I have written something on my Wattpad because there I post poems! They are shorter reads with more meaning. I am currently working on two poetry books but the more important one that ties into this travel blog is called ‘A Barrier Meant To Be Broken’.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

February 12, 2019

Magandang Umaga sa inyong sa lahat! (Good Day Everyone!) [Tagalog]

I’ll be honest. These past two weeks have been stressful but that’s okay. Everyone has their good and bad weeks. Right now I’m at NSCC Bath and Coffee. This place is real cool! I wasn’t sure if I could do my homework here but I asked and they said yes. Later, I saw that there were students all around me! So, I’ll probably come here when I want to concentrate or to do a study group session. I was supposed to find the brewery that my Brother wanted me to find but I have yet to finish the outline to the powerpoint that I’ll have to present.

I wanted to share Filipino history with you all since I’m having to read so much of it. But I don’t want to include it in this post because Kanawedan just finished! Kanawedan is a time where a carnival, trade fair, food fair, and concerts all happen in Tamag, Vigan City. My apartment is LITERALLY right in the middle of the commotion and to my surprise I’m used to the noise so I can sleep through it.

The dorm doors have been staying open all night because of the festival but I’ve been returning at 8 to 8:30 like the regular time that way I don’t mentally come home at the wrong time. I have a mental clock that has me checking the time around 7:50. I check to see what I’m doing and finish up or if I’m out with my friends I tell them that I need to head back.

Sadly, one of my friend’s uncles died. Out of my three close friends two of them have linage that lead to Pangasinan. Those two friends are from Abra and they also have Igorat heritage. If you haven’t read up on my past post Igorat is the equivalent to Native American for us. So, they are called ‘indigenous’ or they’re ‘native filipinos’. These people are the Filipinos who were living on the Philippines Islands before the Spanish came. Also take note that not all of them consider themselves Igorat. Igorat is what my family’s tribe calls themselves but my two friends have blood from different tribes.

Anyway! We looked up our three locations and it turns out that Rosales, Pangasinan is right in the middle of all three of our barangays so we could totally plan a trip to see all our families. We jokes with our friend who is from San Vincente and said that we’ll be right back and he got all sad because his family is from the area around Vigan as far as he knows. But! His mother is in Spain so I think that’s still cool.

I don’t know if I shared this with you all or not but I’d love to live in Spain one day. I looked up the requirements for Spain and I don’t know how it works but if I was a Filipino citizen then I’d could work in Spain for a year and then get my citizenship. So, what I’m curious to know is if I get my dual as a Filipino citizen am I able to get a citizenship to Spain through that?

Of course, this is a thought for later. I like to travel in general. The plan was to finish school, become a Duel Citizen after I graduate then I’d get to see if I could visit Spain. My friend who has a mother working in Honk Kong told me that Honk Kong is two hours away and I found that interesting. One day, I hope I can meet her mom (while I’m with her of course).

San Vicente: My friend took us to a Lola (woman who is around a grandmother’s age) in San Vicente who was alive during the Ferdinand Marcos Reign. Here, they call it the Marcos Regime. (I’ve never used Regime before so it’s weird for me to think ‘Regime’ instead of ‘Reign’. Regime refers to a form of government. Now that I’m staring at it, I still don’t feel that I would use the word but that’s what they call it here so I won’t argue with it.

Anyway, she was really nice! She told us to call her Tita Vini. She worked in Thailand for a long time as a teacher and I found that interesting as well. At her house she has a museum that displayers her (brother’s(?)) art. I’ll be sure to post pictures and see if I can find any articles over the place. If I can’t find any I’ll go back and write one of my own but I doubt there isn’t one. Even then, I really want to go back.

San Vicente is only ten minutes outside of Vigan City and it feels so much better! I like to think of San Vincente as a suburban area. My friend from there said his family is from San Vicente and Mansingal (I don’t know if I spelled that right lol). I told my cousin that if we had to move somewhere I’d chose San Vicente because it’s only ten minutes away and it feels nice. I know he wouldn’t like it though because he’d be away from his friends.

Anyways, about Tita Vini’s place and why we went. So, she has a forest like backyard like! Whoa! She loves nature and believes that as long as we take care of it then it will take care of us and she’s not wrong! Originally, I went for the company but when she spoke more English at the beginning than Ilocano or Tagalog I started to listen in. Her life was really interesting.

She was the oldest of her family. I didn’t catch all the details because she did switch languages and I can’t remember everything she said. But, for a lot of Marco’s reign she was in Thailand. She does like Marcos better than Duterte. She even asked me about my opinion about my country’s politics and I told her that I’m not a supporter of my president either. I told her that I wanted to teach to prevent presidencies like our current presents right now. She smiled about that.

Whoa! There’s so much to cover and I already hit my one thousand words for this post. I don’t want to drag on so I’ll just have to have a separate post for the rest of this. Don’t forget to message me guys. I enjoy talk to you all. And I miss everyone. I also support all of you! So, please let me know what you’ve been up to and if your own boss. Things like that! Like my sister makes her own jewelry and she also sells eggrolls on the side! My friend Michael Dye is kicking it at her It! Works sells. My middle sister is a photographer and I have other friends who are also photographers. I have another friend who is working on her Modeling career and her photos are so beautiful!

So yea y’all let me know what you’re up to! I’d love to hear from you. I also I appreciate all of you who come and read these post. It means the world to me. I like knowing that there’s a steady fifty of you reading these post. Even though I’m not making money off this website it still makes me happy. Maybe one day I’ll have my own business too.

Well, that’s all for now

Thanks for reading!

DJ/Nar/Cho

P.S: This week on February 15th I will be taking the Teacher Aptitude Test! I need to pass it in order to continue studying as a teacher. For those of you reading this before February 15th please think about me and hope that I will pass this test! I'm confident but I don't want to be cocky. Thank you again guys. All of you who read these make my day! <3 all="" and="" are="" doing="" good="" hope="" i="" luck="" me="" of="" p="" wish="" you="" yourselves="">

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Monday, February 4, 2019

February 4th, 2019

Hey guys,

So this is my second semester at UNP (University of Northern Philippines) and so far my time has been good. I’ve been doing more travelling that I like but that’s alright. This is what I’m going to cover on this post for this week.

Labayug for the weekend
Festival
Something in history

I’ll start with this weekend! I went to Labayug to visit my niece who is here for a vacation. Being with her made me miss home and realize the two different lifestyles my father’s side has verse my mother’s side. She’s my niece but she’s only a year younger than me.

The first difference between my mother’s side and my father’s side is the age difference between me and my cousins. In San Emilio, my cousins are my age and around thirty or more. This is because my mother is the third oldest in her family. (She might be the second I can’t quire remember haha). Anyway, I’m pretty sure she’s the third oldest.

On my dad’s side most of my cousins are late thirties or older while the people my age are my nieces or great nieces. A respectful term when talking to someone older than you in my family is ‘Manong’ and Manang’. Manang means ‘older sister’ while ‘Manong’ means older brother.

What I’ve come to learn is that if a person doesn’t know you too well and needs to get your attention they will either call you ‘Manang’ out of respect or ‘Ading’ depending on how that person feels about you. Ading is the respectful term of ‘younger sibling’ which is used for either male or female.

The land lady and some woman at the karenderias (mom and pop restaurants) that I eat at call me Manang not because I’m older than them but because they don’t consider me a child which is how some people taking the word ‘Ading’. Manang, Manong, and Ading are all Ilocano terms.

If a person were to use the Tagalog/Filipino term they would use ‘Ate’ (Ah-teh) and Kuya (Koy-yah). Ate is the female term for older sister while Kuya is the word for older brother. Anak (Ah-knock) *soft o* is the term for younger person as a general term.

The reason why I bring this all up is because when I visited my niece’s family I met her parents for the first couscous time. I know that I’m calling her family as if they’re not my family but my family is so huge it just makes it easier for me to place in my head that her family section is different from mine lol.

Now my niece is adopted into my family but she is also blood. What I mean is that she is related to me in two different ways. Through birth, her biological parents are my Manong and Manang because they are in the same generation as me. One of her parents (I think it’s her dad. It’s hard to keep up with all this stuff lol) Anyway, one of her parents is the child of my dad’s sister.

So, when I have a kid, in this sense she would be their Manang. Since I’m in the same generation as her parents she is supposed to call me Auntie but since we were both raised in the US we both don’t care about those terms. We care about each other and don’t require the respectful term. I guess I should say it’s more interpreted instead of spoken between us.

Through her adoption, she was adopted by my dad’s other sister. Through that marriage she is in the same generation as me as would need to call me Manang instead of aunt but as I said, it’s fine. I found it odd calling her parents Manang and Manong since I call her sister Manang. I’m ‘supposed’ to call her sister who is thirty something by name but since I know her through Filipino culture I can’t bring myself to do it.

I hardly go to Labayug because every time I go there I end up drinking a lot. I had eleven drinks this time and luckily one of my friends called me and pulled me away from the commission outside. However, I did abandon my niece which we had a silent understanding that we weren’t going to do that but I didn’t realize what I had done until the next morning.

When it comes to my dad’s side I tend to be selective on who I am around because they have more of a city folk culture. Not all of them are honest people. Now, on my mom’s side there are people like that also but they’re not as obvious about it.

Despite all this, I still care for my family no matter what. Today I woke up and found out three of my cousins were in town. They all came from Candon but two of them came together while the other came with his church group. I won’t be seeing the one who came with his church group today but I told my cousins that I would buy them dinner but I refuse to give them money and I’m even going to wait to get groceries until tomorrow because if I buy them now they’ll eat them all and I rather not get upset for that lol.

All I did while I was in Labayug is drink and sing. I caught up with niece which is always fun. It’s good to know that she has good friends in her life and that she’s happy. That’s all I could ask for, for her. She should be leaving tomorrow for the US.

Well, I’m running out of time. I want to share with you five Filipino artist and songs that are popular in here. I don’t have enough time to link them for you but I can list them!

Buwan – Juan Karlos
Huling Sayaw - Kamikazee
Sana – I Belong To The Zoo
Sa Ngalan Ng Pag-Ibig – December Avenue
Ikaw – Yeng Constantino

Look them up some time and tell me what you think! They’re all in Filipino however. There’s only one genre in Ilocano and I’m not a huge fan of it. Well, I’ll catch you guys next week! Make sure to keep up on me on the following