ON THE YA BOOKS I’M READING

As Brave as You by Jason Reynolds  – I picked this book in the young adult section of FULLY BOOKED because, from the blurb, it seemed like a book about family relationships. The protagonists are 9 and 11 years old with a grandfather who has dementia. He lost his son in some war, and the boys learn about his sadness later on. To me, it does not register much except for some parts where the dialogue succeeded in making me read it up to the end. For young boys maybe, this is a wonderful adventure book, but I wasn’t into it that much.

Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina was a New York Times Bestseller – and I learned of this book from that list. The blurb was by R.J. Palacio who was the author of that YA Book turned into a movie – Wonder. About a girl in her pre-teen discoveries, this too, has a sub-story about a grandfather who has dementia. I found this a better read than Judy Blume’s “Dear God, It’s Me Margaret”. Merci Suarez is braver, more adventurous, and less self-conscious.

I didn’t enjoy The Giver that much. I have confirmed that I prefer realistic settings to dystopian narratives. However, I can understand how this book resonated with so many young people. I believe that young people prefer structured and probably predictable narratives.

I have to read Human Acts by Han Kang again. This one, has too much reality, the bitter reality. The human body is so thrown out there literally and metaphorically, and the question of the soul separated from the body becomes too depressing to contemplate. Of my December reads, this one really could not even make me cry, but I cringed and felt some similar pain somehow.

The e-books that I finished reading are both enjoyable reads. Freewater by Amina Luoman Dawson is another story about black slaves. Young heroes in this book discover a route to freedom and take it, but in the process, they leave someone behind. The tale is about courage and how this was both an inevitable and a necessary choice even for the young who knew that freedom isn’t something that can be had without a sacrifice and worse, death. The language is unsentimental, I get to see the scenes as if I am watching a film, yet I am not told how to feel. However, whatever feelings I have truly encompassed my deepened understanding of the desperate situation the young characters are in.

Maizy Chen’s Last Chance by Lisa Yee is a narrative of diaspora. The young girl Maizy learns about her roots through a story told by her grandfather’s friend. Incidentally, the friendship is somehow scarred that the girl tries to connect the dots and discovers how her race negotiated the challenges of displacements via migration.

Among these books, I rank Freewater no 1, followed by Human Acts, then Maizy Chen’s Last Chance. I am reading books for Young People to listen to how they respond to real-life situations. I just heard Neil Gaiman say in “Masterclass” that honesty is what makes him go on as a writer – that to be a writer, one must be honest.

In my mid-twenties when I wrote and submitted some poems, I had some friends read the poems first to hear what they thought about them. One of them said that I reveal too much about myself in my writing. Maybe it is both the crafting and the telling. The crafting was juvenile, therefore listless and without direction. The telling almost always established a beginning and an end and I was afraid to get lost in the self-conscious progression. Therefore they were coming out from a bad liar. The fiction wasn’t fictional enough, the poems didn’t have cadence and the voice was generic.

Listening to Neil Gaiman, I thought, well, all writers start that way. However, how writers graduate from journaling personal revelations to crafting a reality to give it a larger-than-life status, is what writing is all about.

 

ON BUILDING A WEBSITE

For my book project THINGS, the task today according to my year plan is to blog about a new-year discovery as this is the 9th month of my 60th year. But since April in 2023 when I officially acquired a senior citizen status, my routine has stayed the same. If there were any new discoveries, I didn't have a record of those experiences. The major culprit was my lack of consistent writing. My last diary entry was dated 2021!

Well, early last year, I installed a loft bed with a stair cabinet and moved my Molave desk from the living room to the space under my bed. I made sure that I would be able to sit and stand underneath so I was happy about having created a 'writing space for myself'. This was necessary since my sister and her son have taken over the entire living room, and now, there is a study table for my nephew and a work desk for my sister. Both are folding tables by the way, and my nephew's is right down the stairs of the double bed, while my sister's rests right beside the door of the unit. I have been thinking about retrieving my Narra desk from my brother's resort in Batangas, where I moved it back when my sister wanted me to remove furniture in my mother's house to give space to possible renters. I acquired that desk from OMF, when they gave it to me after letting me work from home when my mother got sick. That table had deep drawers that my nephew could use for his clothes. Right now, most of his garments are in plastic boxes stacked under his round, blue, folding table.

I installed a double bed in the living room, so that part of the condo isn't anymore mine. Whatever mess they make now with the living room-turned-bedroom-for-two is fine with me as long as the mess doesn't get into my newly created space.

To cheer me up, I bought a new chair more for its aesthetic fit in my under-the-bed office than for its usefulness as a writing chair. And now I have been regretting the purchase because it's difficult to write sitting on that beautiful cozy chair. I am grateful that I have kept my blue folding metal chair from the time I was a boarder in Palanan in 2011, so I use that when writing. Meanwhile, the old, rotating, desk chair now belongs to my sister, who has been using it since the time they moved in with me.

Currently, all my positive experiences have to do with the luxury of sleeping on the 'loft bed' in my 35 sq meter condo. Up on my bunk, I am no longer bothered by the traffic of my sister and her son coming and going in and out of the bathroom. I can now rest in peace without Joseph jumping on the bed every time he goes to the window to look at children playing in the garden of Gateway Regency only one floor below. When I had a proper bed, it was also a sofa, and my nephew was hardly in the living room but was always lingering on my bed while he played, painted, or simply watched other children play from the bedside window. His mom has now installed for him a wall fan, and lately, he's loving the independence of watching Netflix on his tablet on his bed, with all his stuffed toys and 'dippers' beside. However, the child still asks me occasionally if he could sleep with me- which I let him sometimes because he is really a sweet boy. But more and more, I have been rejecting his request because he's nine and has grown taller. Cuddling him on my bed has become less cozy and comfortable, but I cherish his little head popping up the loft stairs every morning when he goes up to say, 'Good morning Ninang.'

Today, instead of blogging about any new discovery [because I really don't have one], I went to YouTube for guidance on productive blogging. Half of this day was spent googling and then watching videos on how to create a new website. At this age, I probably need more time to research on these technicalities before I plunge to the actual 'business' of blogging. I found Hostinger Academy which gave me a list of 'no-code' web-builders. I wondered why 'Wordpress' wasn't on that list, however, if I use Hostinger for web hosting, it directs me to 'Wordpress'. So since I already have this Wordpress blog, on impulse, I upgraded my confidantesite. blog, but then I canceled my purchase immediately because I realized that I still didn't understand the process. I had changed the domain name to 'auntiedote.com' but when I searched for the domain name after an upgrade, I didn't know where it went and was lost as to how to proceed to Hostinger. Confused even after three tutorial videos, I have now spent almost four hours of 'learning' how to build a website, yet I haven't learned anything.

I miss Sitesell, the web hosting I used from 2004 to 2021. It really was convenient for old people like me with its full tutorials. Even when you get lost, you can always go back and repeat at Sitesell and there are tons of easy help available which took only a little time to discover.

After cancelling my purchase, I got this email from Wordpress:

The following upgrades have been cancelled and ฿3,348.00 refunded:

• WordPress.com Explorer on https://confidantesite.wordpress.com
• Domain: confidantesite.blog

Your refund has been sent to the method of payment that you used for your original purchase. You will receive it in 7-10 business days. If you paid with a credit card, this may appear as a credit/refund on your statement, or the original charge will show as reversed, which would simply remove the original charge from your statement - depending on your bank. If you paid via PayPal, you’ll see the refund in your transaction history.

If you have any questions or don't receive the refund, please contact support

Did I lose all of my previous blogs now? Wordpress says that my domain confidantesite.blog has been deleted, and as a result, I might not be able to regain that same domain name.

I should look for copies of my previous blogs - hopefully, I emailed copies of those to myself. This is a bit sad, but well, maybe this is also an adventure, although a sad one. So much for a new website.