The first-ever entry

26th August, 2024

I am writing this blog post, which as the title immediately above indicates is my first-ever on Tapilók-bángon, right before I sleep—it's a quarter till 9. I'm sleeping early to-night for class to-morrow starts at 8:30 in the morning, and the commute from mine to campus takes at least an hour and a half, not to mention the 20 to 30 minutes I need to actually get to a specific class. That means I have to be out of the house by 6:30, which in turn means I need to be awake by 4:30. With how easily I get distracted and with how many mental boxes I have to check,—Have I ironed my shirt right? my pants? Does my pen have enough ink even? &c., &c.,—two hours is perfect for prepping. Any longer and I'd rather just stay at home; any shorter and I start panicking, panicking, panicking.

I'm not sure if the 20 to 30 minutes I spend getting lost on campus looking for the right building and room are normal. Apparently, the University of the Philippines's Dilimán campus, where I go to, is 493 hectares or 1,220 acres big. To get around without a car or a bike or the patience to walk everywhere, you have to take a jeep(ney), which in the Philippines is basically an elongated version of the typical US military jeep but used for public transport.Thus far I've only gone to three in-person classes, all in one day (that being Tuesday the 22nd), and all of them I went to by jeep. Plus a bit of unavoidable walking. Really it's three things: plain unfamiliarity and newness, as a freshman; general shelteredness and klutzhood, as a long-time shut-in; and objectively, the campus's outsizedness.

Anyways. This Web-site, and by extension this Weblog, probably won't be out until days after the 26th. I'm still dating this entry the 26th though—that's honesty. And I still intend on finishing this in one go, as a sort of exercise in writing spontaneously and without the usual neuroses and excuses. Not that those are necessarily bad, or that they should be laid at the feet of the individual "writer" (cultural worker? literary worker? culturoliterary worker?), of course. I just want to be able to write less restrictedly, which is naturally to say, more freely. Last year I recall commencing a series of typewritten journal entries with the same aim in mind, but it never proved sustainable. Maybe this Weblog—and yes, I'm calling it a Weblog, not a blog—will succeed where that previous attempt failed. I think it helps to have an audience, or really a community with which/whom to share these things.

Neither is the intention, by the way, to solely tackle form and technique. That would be reactionary! I mean for these entries to have substance. But then what exactly is meant by substance? One aspect or thing standing in contradiction to another aspect or thing cannot exist without the other, without its opposite; form cannot be without substance and substance cannot be without form. So in a very literal way, it would be impossible for any one of these entries to be totally, entirely unsubstantial, just as it would be impossible for an idea to exist without being expressed, i.e., formalised, in some way, for kernel not to have shell and for shell not to kernel something—whatever that is.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that although one of my primary motivators is my desire to better my practice in a sense, the number one thing is still the meat of, within, and underpinning that practice; or, if I can word it more clearly, the point is not technical improvement for its own sake, but for the sake of making the expression and exchange of ideas easier, more thoroughgoing, &c., &c.

As regards any rules or routines for this Weblog, the plan is to come up with stuff as I go along. I'm not even sure if I want to do these entries weekly—hence "hopefully" in the tagline above. I shan't be fixing a strict schedule, but I will try to make a week the longest time without posting.

I would write more but at this point I'm far too sleepy to even try and be coherent. So: more to come soon . . . hopefully!

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