magnifico

the movie magnifico is truly an inspiring movie. it is about a poor family and the struggles they go through just to survive. the father has a well enough job to provide for his family but since his mother falls off the roof they do not have enough money to buy the medicine needed. they also have a daughter who is mentally ill. and their eldest son who is a scholar in manila came back from to the province saying that he had lost his scholarship.

this family has plenty going on for them. magnifico, the middle child, tries his best to do what he can. when he found out that his family do not have enough money he decided to make a "kabaong" for his lola so that they wouldn't have to worry about that money. and there was a "fiesta" coming up and he wanted to bring his sister. so he had sold water and juice at the fiesta so that he could earn enough money to buy a wheelchair for his sister so he could bring her to the last day of the fiesta. although the money that he had saved was used for the medicine of his lola. so in the end magnifico had to carry his sister on his back all the way to the fiesta.

i hate that at the end of the movie, while they were at the fiesta almost everything that could be lucky to happen to magnifico happened. they were able to get free food. they were able to ride for free in the rides they wanted to try out. it was if it was a sign that something bad will surely happen. and ofcourse it did happen. magnifico gets run over by a fast moving vehicle.

its really horrible how something so tragic has to happen just for people to realize the good that one person has done for them. magnifico had to die just for his family to realize the greatness that he has done.

the most painful part is how the kabaong that he had made for his grandmother ended up to be his.

novels

Reconnaissance by Tara FT Sering is a chick-lit novel. It is basically a woman’s way from being engaged to completely broken. She tries to find a way to mend her broken heart. It is like a guide for other women who go through break-ups and how they should be able to handle it. There are actual steps in the novel on how you can recover. It is a very detail book and while you are reading, it is as if you are the woman actually going through the break-up. You see it as if it were your point of view.

Plenty of women can relate to this book because a lot have been in love and have also been hurt and you need your friends to help you move on. The novel is like the book “Internet for Dummies” or “Break-Up 101”. It helps women a lot because it lets them know that they are not alone. That others go through it and they do move on and survive from the pain. And though at times it takes years to find another man to make you feel whole again sometimes it takes less than that.

Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan is a crime novel. It is very interesting. Quite a good read. It is just like the television show “CSI”. The author writes the novel with details that will still leave you guessing and make you want to read on till the very end of the book. Though there may be some parts of the book where it may be dull and seem inappropriate to what the novel is really about but overall it was still a pretty interesting read.

I would never have assumed in the beginning that the free dentist would be the killer. My guess would be on Father Emil for he is the one who is actually with the children practically all the time. And who would have guessed that priests would be the ones to actually solve the case? The novel truly gives a different point of view of all priests. It shows that priests are not just about God that they too may have studied something different before they came to be a priest. That they had something else planned for their lives but God called on to them more.

generations

The story Generations is about a young attractive girl whose father was arrested for being drunk by military soldiers. The girl was only allowed to be able to get her father back if it came with a price. Unfortunately her price was to be molested by military soldiers. On their way back home the girl felt so much courage to fight for herself after the incident which resulted her killing her own father. She had figured that if she killed her father then she would not be molested again.

During class discussions it had been most common for the whole class to agree that this may not have been her first time being molested and maybe she wasn’t even molested to begin with. Maybe she has done this before. She just paid a price since she resulted to killing her father.

what if

Document is an amusing story. It is about a girl and a boy best friend who are so comfortable with each other. They would go to the mall together and if they had something to do for school the girl would go to the guy’s dorm and use his computer. It was completely normal. Until the girl had left a document that said “DISAPPE.doc” that made the guy think if the girl had feelings for him. He had thought what-if she had liked me all along and I never even noticed her? Their friendship starts to get to deeper.

As for The Tale of the Spinster and Peter Pan, this is about a woman who starts to have feelings for a guy in a band and realizes that her assumptions had been wrong all along. She had believed this guy to be the perfect man for her and once she was actually she approached by the man he was the complete opposite.

These stories are based on “what-if”. They were all made to think of what could be.

magnificence & games

Magnificence is truly a very eye opening story. You truly do not know why these certain types of treatment happen in the world. It is shocking but also makes you realize that that is what the world is. There will always be people who are twisted. Who would have figured that a bus driver, someone who is also a close friend to the family, would harass a little girl? He invaded her privacy and as for a little girl she wouldn’t even know what the proper boundaries are for harassment. As for the instincts of a mother, she automatically knows if something was wrong with her daughter without the little girl having to say one word. With her quick decision she immediately came to the rescue of her daughter and confronted the bus driver.

It is truly amazing how much a mother is so in-tune with their children. There is an unspoken bond between them that will never go away. I am so thankful for my mother for I know that no matter what happens she will always be by my side and will always take care of me for her love could not be greater than any other.

Now Games is a very interesting story of a way girl tries to figure out if her boyfriend is a babaero or not. She disguises herself to be plenty of different girls and calls her boyfriend. Because of this their relationship ends up to be broken just because she did not trust her boyfriend.

Trust is an important part in a relationship. If you do not have trust in your significant other how could you possible build up on anything more?

decisions

Love in the Cornhusks is a woman stuck in a marriage while also in love with another man. She had believed that the love of her life has left her and never came back. But it turns out that the man had to leave for a while but will come back. And after reading that letter Tiang had already been married to another man. She had never thought that the man of her dreams would come back. But she already is in a marriage and she decides to stick with that no matter how much feelings she has for the other man.

As for The Corral, it is about two men who like one girl. One man is of the same age as the girl but does not have enough money to support them in the future, whilst the other man is wealthy enough for the both of them which is why the girl picked the rich man. Back in those days, women didn’t really have the right to choose which man they could be with. They didn’t even have the choice of what clothes they could wear or if they could even have a job. Luckily for women these days they are free to make their own decisions and what they want to do in their lives.

appreciation

Appreciation of women is what has the two stories of The Bread of Salt and Summer Solstice portray.

The Bread of Salt is the awe of a boy to girl named Aida. He does everything that he can to try and show to this girl how much he likes and appreciates her. His first crush is truly something that means practically the whole world for him. And he realizes that with all the efforts that he had tried he ends up getting shut down and his pride go way down. All his hard work wasn’t good enough for the girl and it seemed as if all his work had just made him look lower to Aida.

It sure is hard to show someone that you have emotions for them without having the fear of rejection. And the most painful part is by trying and still getting rejected.

Summer Solstice was a story that I really did not enjoy or understand quite well. I think it is about a woman who is perfect and does everything for her husband but took a ritual at some place to realize that she is not being adored enough by her husband.

Being adored or appreciated is always great but I guess it does seem to be hard to be shown from time to time. But just because it is not shown doesn’t mean that it is not there. I guess for the woman in the story she just wanted to feel that she is appreciated by her husband by at least a show from her husband once in a while.

lessons learned

Francisco Arcellana’s two short stories “The Mats” and Divide by Two” are both stories of hardships that each and every family goes through and how they deal with it.

The Mats, a story about a father coming back home to his family from a trip, with of course “pasalubong”, a tradition Filipinos have been doing every time one of them go to a different place. It is their way of bring a piece of that place back with them and share it with others. And for this family the father had bought each member of the family their own specially made mats. But the most touching part of the story was that the father had also gotten three other specially made mats for three daughters that had died. That was the really moving part of the story for even though three people from their family had died they are still remembered and are still a part of their lives no matter what happens.

Divided by Two is basically about the love affair between two neighbors. And ever since one these neighbors had put up a fence which unevenly measured pressure between the two started heating up. And just because of a fence being built between two houses a husband and a wife led to the revelation that the wife had been having an affair with the man next door, who also is married. Even though these things had been a lot to take the wife had still chosen her husband.

These stories undergo different situations and different emotions. The Mats is a very moving story and it true in most cases, that when somebody close to your heart dies they will never go away and be forgotten. And as for Divided by Two, it shows that marriage can be difficult and that no matter what happens you have agreed to be in that marriage, whether or not it may be difficult you will still struggle and fight for the one you love.

Family

The two stories of “My Father Goes to Court” by Carlos Bulosan and “How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife” by Manuel Arguilla are both stories of family values.

My Father Goes to Court is about how a rich man had believed that a poor family had stolen the spirit of their wealth and food and had given the poor family a court order. During the hearing the rich man had come full of anger whilst the poor man had come very relaxed and did not let anger get a hold of him.

How My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife was the introduction of Leon’s wife to his family in the province. But the twist in the story was how Leon had not introduced his wife before getting married. This is very strange for a typical Filipino family.

Since I am a Filipino, I believe that no matter how many hardships of difficulties we all go through in our lives there will always be a tradition that we have to follow. And as for these two stories it has shown how hardships can be handled if you do not let anger come to you so quickly and that even though it had taken Leon till his was married to introduce his wife to his family, the wife was still accepted anyways. A typical Filipino family would always be understanding and forgiving no matter what the problem is and whether or not anger had gotten to them first.