Weaving Magic

I spent most of the day in UP Diliman to attend the workshop: A Day with Weavers of Magic: Writing, Illustrating, and Telling Stories for Children.

The original plan was Leng, Kistna, Joan and I will attend this workshop. But Leng had to fly in another Asian country so we were reduced to three. Then Kistna got a new job. She could no longer make it, trimming the berk attendees into two. At the last minute, Joan took a rain check because she was not feeling well. And so the cheese that stands alone went ahead and braved Diliman by herself.

The cheese is me, by the way.

I know how to get to Diliman via jeepney but I know little about its buildings so I rested my fate and my search for the educ building to manong driver whom I later found out, didn’t deserve my trust. My hazy memory and mental map of UPD’s geography dictates that the educ building is somewhere around the sunken garden. We were almost about to drive past the sunken garden yet manong was not dropping me off anywhere. As it turns out, he doesn’t know where it was. Lucky for me, a student pointed me to the blessed building. At least, I made it albeit my being one and a half hour late.




The price for my tardiness is me missing the main reason why I wanted to attend the workshop: to get a fresh knowledge on writing. So there goes. But it wasn’t at all a lost cause. I did learn a few of things still. Mostly, the workshop motivated me, tapping into that part of me which got me into communication arts in the first place, which clearly has nothing to do with me writing. I knew I had a shot at Comm. Arts the day I learned to open my mouth and read aloud, with emotions, whatever piece it was I got a hold of.

The big bulk of the workshop went to storytelling. It was like a refresher course of my Oral Interpretation class in college. A class which I loved. A class which we spent reading texts aloud, an activity I’m fond of. Only, we had to observe the technicalities of performing in front of an audience which wasn’t really a problem. I think I did well in that class. My heart was in it after all.

But my speaking voice slowly faded when my written voice was gradually amplified. I spoke less and wrote more. As a result, my speaking skills have been slowly tarnishing which is a shame. I seemed to have overlooked one while nurturing the other. (Let me say, though, that I am far from perfecting either of the two skills.)




The workshop somehow revived the spirit that someday I can equally nourish my writing and speaking abilities. That I can continue to write and, if given a chance, read what I have written or talk about it at least. Perhaps in doing both, I can pursue what-is-now-my-latent advocacy: reaching out to children.

So help me God.