At Close Proximities

An open letter to my husband who went away to escape the household chores…

To Young Goodman Brown

Good, you left with your desire to walk down

the evil path with the spooky guy (with his serpent staff)

who fetched you in the dead of the night.

Good, do remember, that even if you promised me kisses

of return and double-stuffed Oreos

you still left – the dishes unwashed

and the dogs untied outside.

You chose to poke your nose to other people’s business,

without minding ours: the house is too dirty!

The ceilings unclean! The stuffing is coming out the couch!

You didn’t mind. Did I tell you to do something about them?

Must you veer away from me? I asked,

and tried to hold you back, a little longer but you depended so much

that such virtue would stay forever.

But, I’m not sorry at all that you left me, my macho thrillseeker

Because I too decided to chase the devil!

To see what it is like to doubt what is present.

So if we plan to come back to our house again

let’s decide: who would get the TV, the radio,

the fridge, the bedroom, the bathtub…

Let’s decide on the division of the house:

who gets the living room, the bedroom,

the comfort room, the kitchen…

who gets where.

Good, I’ve told you even before, this predestination –

you need not go to escape the household chores.

Faith.

The structure is quite familiar: the poem is inspired from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown, so the reader would know that the character is involved in a quest, where he experienced something, but when he tried to go back, he didn’t live the way he lived again before.

I like the Nathaniel Goodman’s stories. They are mostly about allegorical narratives that represent ethical and psychological issues of the society. Take for example, the Young Goodman Brown and The Minister’s Black Veil.

That’s why I re-vision the story and made it into a contemporary poem.

I still remember the time when I joined the class field trip to General Santos to visit the three seed companies there – Monsanto Research, Syngenta and Dow AgroSciences (DAS). The field trip was memorable because I learned a lot of things.

Monsanto Philippines are currently working on corn, cotton and soybean products. Monsanto uses cry1ab transgenes in their commercial fields. The company’s objective is to raise the genetic potential of the plant to fight yield suppressions such as corn borers, weeds, rootworms, etc. With these, Monsanto products are Bt hybrids with insect or weed control, or a combination of both (Yield Guard, Round-Up Ready, Mon810). The company’s plant breeders said that they were able to fight pests effectively, thus this increases the yield. They can also plant three times in a year, instead of two, and they don’t need to control and manage the weeds too. Currently, they are working on drought-tolerant corn, products with omega-3 proteins or balanced proteins, which will be available in the future. (more…)

I was walking in the street when I noticed a long queue of people waiting to buy at least three kilos of rice from the NFA. This is because the market price of the rice in the country nowadays has skyrocketed from 23Php to a painstaking 33Php. But the rice that is being sold in the NFA-accredited stores only costs 18Php, which is convenient to low-income families. Some people find this alarming, but others remained to be passive about it and say that the people are just in the state of ‘panic-buying’.

Hunger is apparently widespread in the country, and it is not only because we have problems in the supply aspects, but the growing demand for food is rapidly increasing each year because of the growing population. Thus, the problem is relative to other problems as well, which includes the employees demanding for a wage increase, transportation groups calling for fare hikes, and the mounting uneasy of the administration’s performance on alleviating poverty of the people.

But with the advent of the agribiotech research on Golden Rice, chances are big that this would alleviate hunger in the country, researchers said.

Golden Rice is one of the genetically modified crops that are in the research pipelines today, along with virus-resistant papaya, bt eggplant, and many more. It is GM rice engineered to produce pro vitamin A. Because it has a value added pro vitamin A, it is regarded as a cure for the Third World countries’s widespread deficiencies in vitamin A that would decrease the risks of blindness in children and other vitamin A related-deficiencies. When you think about it, it seems to be totally amazing, but some critics say the otherwise.

Issues raised by the GMO critics are mainly centered on safety issues of the said modified rice. And they also insisted that there are absolutely alternative and cheap medicines to combat vitamin A deficiencies. Furthermore, beta-carotene/pro vitamin A is consumed when Golden Rice is eaten, but it is a only a precursor for vitamin A, so therefore, in order to absorb vitamin A, one should also consume food that is rich in protein and fat, with which the low-income families couldn’t afford readily. What’s more, they also said that Golden Rice is like a Trojan horse, that if we learn to accept it, then it would be easy to accept other GM crops as well.

Another issue is also the capitalist control. Will other people tend to become richer than the other people? Is there a uniform sizes in the pie in terms of global distribution?

But the truth is, the technology behind the Golden Rice is given free of charge to subsistent farmers. And the issue of capitalist control is not possible because it would not be developed for and by an industry. But let’s just hope and be wary that the benefits of this would outweigh capitalist control and consumers would also benefit from the GM technology.

This is a great leap to limit the possible numbers of blind children and vitamin-A deficiency-related deaths, however, scientists and researchers should be certain of this technology before releasing it to the market. There is definitely a need to continuous monitoring and proper regulation for the introduction of this GM crop.

Presently, Golden Rice is still under rigorous research. IRRI and PhilRice are the two institutions that investigate this project as of the moment. It is said to be available in 2010.

By then, I hope I won’t see a long queue of people in the street squeezing themselves to buy rice.

It’s weird that I’m here at home doing nothing but stare at the ceiling for hours, while people around the world are doing something productive. This thought is intensified even more when I saw the back-to-back episodes of How Do They Do It in Discovery Channel last Sunday. I was impressed at the innovative technologies that they are using – that the other countries are currently using to do and create things that we encounter everyday, and I haven’t really thought about the how of it, not until I aw this. In fact, such things such as knives, forks, egg beaters or electric iron and how to make them never really came across in my mind.

Last Sunday’s episode of How Do They Do It featured how to transfer oil from the oil rig to the other parts across the globe. We all know that oil is an essential source of energy and this job is crucial especially if you are tasked to transfer lots and lots of barrels of oil by trans-oceanic transportation. But in the show it featured the Mighty Servant, a transporter that acts as a giant-ocean-going pick-up truck to sail the oil rig itself (20,000 tons of oil rig, I think) to the other parts of the world. It is very risky due to the natural occurrences of typhoon or other weather disruptions. What I saw was when the workers there were transferring the oil rig to the Mighty Servant, they were extra careful because the ship might become unstable because of the heavy weight of the load. This is a very crucial task, because they have to be accurate on the position where the oil rig should be. If the lift is successful, then the Mighty Servant will have its 5-week voyage across the globe to the other parts of the world.

Discovery channel also featured electric shaver from the Braun company in Germany. This is a very convenient especially for men because it provides a skin smooth shave for their mustache. The most critical considerations about this product are the blade and the protective foil, because the safety starts there. So critical that some parts have to be microscopically engineered, and should undergo photoelectric plating to produce a photographic image that would be used as a template. Then, in the fully operated assembly line, parts of it are brought together. After that, the new products need to undergo testing to assure that they are safe.

Next top, we got transporter, the SPMT (if I’m not mistaken) from Fagioli. It weighs over 15,000 tons, has 16 wheels and can move to 5km/hr. This man made marvel is used to transport the turbine from the production area in Milan to the power station in Arizona. It is highly maneuverable and very accurate in terms of distances. It has hydraulic suspension system and it can weigh materials up to 570 tons. The Fagioli people transferred it by lifting it and loading it to the 150-meter long barge and it took a painstakingly 30 minutes. Then, after checking and double checking its precise position, the journey of 10,000 km starts from there to America.

The most interesting feature above all was the fire-proof race suit that a racer should use when he or she is into drag racing. This will protect the driver (of the Fire Force car) from any possible explosion due to the jet because of the use of highly expensive fuel. The Fire Force car can run in 700km/hr in 5 seconds, and even uses a pair of parachutes to slow it down. It takes two days to complete a suit that would insulate the driver’s skin and at the same time would also gave him comfort. The first thing to do is to make create a design that would serve as the template. Then you cut out the fabric, and with this, they used computer-controlled cutting machine. Amazing. The fabric would protect the driver not only from the fire but its three-layered fabric would also protect him from the radiant heat. They used fire-resistant thread, of which I never knew existed, I was really impressed. After it, one can now put the logo design in front. Then the suits are tested to ensure its safety.

It’s incredible, when Discovery channel featured these amazing products. With technology, such things are really possible.

“Ai ga areba heiwa da” to

Dareka ga kuchi ni shiteita

Unazuku hito mo ireba

Utagau hito mo iru

Kurushimi ga aru kara koso

Anata wo dakishimeru toki

Sono ude no yasashisa wo

Heiwa to kanjiru no deshou

Aru toki kara mukuchi ni nari

kokoro wo shimekiri

Kono koi ga

hikisakare sou ni natta

*Kasaneta kono te wo

Kondo wa hanasanai

Shinjiru chikara ga

Ai wo jiyuu ni suru

Yuujou ni sukuwaretari

Mirai wo souzou shitari

Shiawase wa mieru kedo

Jibun wo miru koto wa nai

Yakusoku to iu watashi-tachi no

KONPASU dakedewa

Kono koi wa hougaku wo

miushinau no

**Kiseki wo matsu yori

Kono te wo tsunagitai

Shinjiru chikara ga

Watashi wo jiyuu ni suru

Kono koi wo osorezu ni

You don’t have to fear this love,

this love

*repeat

**repeat

Both the lyrics and the music of this song were written by Angela Aki herself. I really like this song because it is about not fearing love, and taking risks all in the name of love. The first two lines “’Ai ga areba heiwa da’ to, dareka ga kuchi ni shiteita” literally means “Someone once said that ‘If you have love, you have peace’”. So the song talks about that when you love, you also create peace (though there IS a kind of love that creates discord, trust me). The speaker of the song is telling someone to love freely, and don’t be afraid of love. The phrase “Ai wo jiyuu ni suru” literally means “Love freely”.

“Kono koi wo osorezu ni” literally means “You don’t have to fear this love” which is immediately followed by its English translation. I think that’s the central core of the song, to sum it all up.

This song is one of the ending songs of the anime Blood+.

On one corner

tucked

in a hanger with your

underwear

I,

seemed forgotten

by you, who finds

pleasure:

either with his hands

keeping your hair

out of your face

or him

messing up your hair

like last night.

I couldn’t appreciate anime more in any day than during this summer. Since I’m staying home this break I didn’t do anything “cerebral” or some sort. Well, you must understand, I’m trying to take back those sleepless nights last semester, where most of them were spent from pouring myself over stacks of books that rubbed my brain raw. Well anyway, students like us deserved a good, nice vacation after such traumatic experience, and now I found out that watching TV, reading books of my own choice (I think that should be emphasized) and sleeping in between those times really help me during the break. Watching anime is also a great leisure activity. *laughs.

Speaking of anime, out of my boredom, I ranked my favorite ones to ten.

At the tenth spot is my all-time favorite Cardcaptor Sakura. What’s good about it is that it has a very excellent original story, and very nice vivid animation. My favorite character is Shaoran, although he’s an archetype, so to speak, but his character has a high degree of verisimilitude.

At ninth spot is Bokura ga Ita, or We Were There if I’m not mistaken in my English translation. I really like it because even though it’s the same pattern all over again, falling in love, breaking up, unrequited love – there is something in it that is expressed in a very subtle way. And the insert songs are so amazing. Even I, as a viewer, did have my own emotional struggle because of the conflict in Yano-Nana affair. And Yano is probably what some girls really like – after all two-thirds of the class is in love with him. The manga series is also cool, by Yuuki Obata.

At the eight spot is La Corda d’Oro Primo Passo which is currently shown in Animax. With its vivid animation and musical background plus fascinating guys, I couldn’t stand the fact of missing any single episodes. Hino is so captivating, I really like her a lot.

Next, at the seventh rank is Fruits Basket. It’s funny in a cute way, and even though Honda-san may appear so innocent and so naïve, she is really lovable. And see? There is always the usual love triangle affair among Tohru, Yuki and Kyo. The manga series is written by Takaya Natsuki.

At the sixth spot is Midori no Hibi (Midori Days). Midori is so cute. The anime is so funny, and worth my time, but later on when you encounter the drama part, you get carried away (maybe this is because you get used to think that this is a funny one, but when you get to the emotional part you ended up being touched by something you are not used to). Seiji Sawamura’s character as a highschool delinquent is a fascinating one, and the very cute Midori is really something to look forward to every episode.

How would you feel if you possessed a certain mystical stone that would increase your abilities a thousand fold? And if you’re an alchemist, you would have extraordinary power to heal all injuries and to have everlasting life. This is the story of Fullmetal Alchemist, at my fifth spot, a quest to find the ultimate Philosopher’s Stone. Edward Elric as the youngest state alchemist is utterly stunning. As you go on watching this anime you would find that there is an underlying message about the science-religion (or morality, for that matter) in it. After all, the power to possess the stone does not only bring good things, but it has the power to annihilate and destroy every single living life there is. I also like Winry Rockbell’s character, her addiction to rebuilding mechanical devices exemplifies her strong personality.

At the fourth spot is Honey and Clover! It’s a very heartwarming story of college students living their college lives amidst encountering emotional struggles and life’s difficulties until they learn more about themselves. My personal favorite character is Ayumi Yamada, the Iron Girl with her excellence in making pottery, and good looks (not to mention long legs). Her unrequited love for Takumi Mayama is one of the dramatic scenes of the anime.

At the third spot is Inuyasha, with its witty, amazing plot – a girl named Kagome traveling to the feudal environment using the old well and meeting the half-demon Inuyasha. The real story begins as they find the broken pieces of the Shikon no Tama, but along the way, there seems to be a lot of touching romantic episodes between Kagome and Inuyasha, and the conflict is escalated with the presence of another character, Kikyou, Inuyasha’s beloved. This is really a must-seen anime for me. My personal favorite character, aside from the main characters, is Sesshoumaru. Maybe because of his strong atmosphere that exudes in his personality.

At the second spot is Blood+ – an anime produced by Production IG and Aniplex, is a story of Saya Otonashii, as she fights Chiropterans and gets rid of them and finds her own self-identity along the way. This anime is a mixture of horror, action, drama, mystery, supernatural, and romance genres all in one, which makes up the anime’s complex and concentrated plot. Saya embarks on the journey to fight the Chiropteran (vampiric creatures) with her faithful servant Haji, some members of the Red Shield, brothers Kai and Riku and other faithful friends. The plot is so amazing that once you get started watching it, you wouldn’t like missing episodes in the future. Some scenes may contain strong violence and language, which is why it’s hard to let other people see it halfway because they might not understand. This anime is so good, that I love watching it all over again.

But my favorite most of all is Samurai X. The whole story is definitely amazing enough for anyone to like. The fight scenes, the language and the animation are perfectly incorporated. Kenshin Himura’s character as a wanderer and as a bloodthirsty swordsman is unforgettable. Some scenes are funny, terrifying and touching. My favorite character, other than Kenshin himself is Saito. He’s kinda disturbing but his personality is so strong for me. It’s a story of fighting for the better good, living a new life out of a dreadful past, learning to love even through circumstances when the haunting memories from the past seemed to still hang around within and being strong in one’s convictions. I love it.

You

who just sipped

my coffee

from that table

should make me

another

coffee, the same cup

to fill in

what you’ve taken

and what I’ve

lost.