Band 5 Writing: How to Make Sense para Hindi na Sumakit ang Bangs Ko

     1.       Magsulat para sa “bobong” mambabasa. Tandaan na waley ka sa tabi ng reader mo teh, kailangan isang basa nila intindi agad. Hindi ibig sabihin na bobo talaga ang mambabasa mo. Ibig lang sabihin dapat madali ma-gets ang gusto mo sabihin. Dapat klaro ang exposisyon, may kuneksyon ang mga ideas, at may sense ang mga gagamitin mong example. 

     Pasok ka nalang ng Writing coaching namin, para malaman mo kung paano ‘to ginagawa.

     2.       Wag sobrang philosophical. Kailangan klaro, naiintindihan, at may kuneksyon sa mundo. Hindi pwedeng puro generalized statement/cliché/proverb. Unang-una, walang originality. Pangalawa, e ano naman? Di ko kase na-gets yung sinabi mo, it's so unfathomable that I must reach into th abyss of YOUR mind in order for me to fully comprehend. Hala. Lagot ka pag ganyan. Wag mong gamitin ang salita na cute lang kase may rhyme, pero kailangan ng matagalang soul searching para maintindihan.  Sabihin mo sa essay mo kung anung kuneksyon nyan sa tunay na mundo. Ideas can be struck down by a well-placed argument, but examples taken from the real world are difficult to refute.

Ansabe?: “Contraception is corruption.” (Students, imagine me rolling my eyes and making “quote-quote” gestures while doing this) Ito pa, medyo bago: “Yes to Saved Sex. No to Safe Sex.” 'Nga pala, hindi ko orig ang mga quotes na yan ha?

Clear: Many people fear that the Reproductive Health Law will provide an avenue for corrupt politicians to put more of the people’s money in their pockets because the government may purchase contraception from international producers and manufacturers of contraceptives. This is why they believe that the RH law may lead to corruption.

Singit!(Counter argument): If this is the argument that shall be considered, however, then any law that would make use of the people’s money to provide service to those in need should never be passed, as these will also provide opportunities for some politicians to steal the people’s taxes.

Moral lesson: Kung presenting two arguments ang drama ng essay mo, and you disagree with one argument, then make your rebuttal on the succeeding paragraph, preferably making use of the DC, IC (complex sentence) sentence construction. Pasok ka ng klase namen, para makarelate ka!

     3.       Tandaan: Ang kagandahan, hindi lang sa content, sa composition din (and vice versa; ganda nga ng Grammar at word usage, waley namang utak ang sinulat, waley parin). Minsan, hindi naman talaga mali ang Grammar ng essay mo. Chaka lang talaga. May tawag tayo diyan: aesthetics. Kagandahan teh. Dun ka lumagay sa ikakaganda ng sulat mo (also applicable to mala-doktor na penmanship)

For example:

Chaka: There are several steps to the writing process. Firstly, you plan your essay through either clustering or outlining. Secondly, you write your first draft based on the plan. Lastly, you edit and revise your draft.

Bakit chaka? Wala lang. Oo, wala lang. Ang pangit ay pangit. Like me, kapag haggard na sa pagchicheck ng 1,000,000,000 essays per day.

Moral lesson: lessen adverbs ending with ‘ly’, kase chaka.

Kinaganda mo ito: There are several steps to the writing process. Before you actually write your first draft, you should first plan your essay through outlining or clustering. Once you have finished the plan, you may now write your essay. Upon finishing this step, you should edit and revise your article.

     4.       Huwag gumamit ng salitang walang naiko-contribute sa  mensahe.

Kung pwede mo paikliin, do so. Instead na “due to the fact”, pwede namang “because”. At sobrang personal naman ata ang “I personally think”. Tandaan: ang ideya ang bubuo sa word count. Kung trip mo na gumamit ng pagka-haba-habang sentences dahil lang trip mo rin magpasikat, hindi mo yan kinaganda teh.

    5.       Super Dali Preposition Lesson

Tatanungin mo pa ba ako kung bakit kailangan ito? By the way, hindi ito kumpleto. Gazillion ang use ng prepositions. Simple usage lang ang mga ito.

Preposition	Filipino Equivalent	Example
To	“papunta”, minsan “para” (di yung sa dyip ha)	We are going TO Manila. TO Andre (gift ang peg)
From	“mula sa” o kaya “galing kay”	We are going to Manila FROM Makati. Andre got this FROM Panda (pang regalo lang ulit)
With	“kasama”	We are going to Manila from Makati WITH our teachers.
By	Isang preposition na gagamitin para ipakita ang doer ng action o kaya “katabi”	This was written BY a crazy filingerang Englisherang guro. “Standing BY my window, waiting for your call… Seems I really miss you, after all.” Char.
Through	Tagus-tagusan, o kaya “sa pamamagitan” P.S.: Pareho lang to ng thru, teh. Wag kang toxic, eto nalang ang gamitin mo para ‘di magulo ang spelling.	Some dude with X-Ray Vision: Heeeeeey ! I can see THROUGH  you! I am sure that THROUGH hard work you will be able to achieve your goals.

    6.       Monotony is codswallop.

Anu daw?  Be conscious sa writing.

Example:

The significant increase of the rubbish produced has been attributed to the increase of population. This is because the increase in population would mean that there is also an increase in the production of products, from which significant amount of rubbish may be a byproduct off. The increase of population would mean an increase in the consumption of different products…

Chaka. Hala, sige, waley na ibang vocabs teh?

Compose consciously. I’m sure most of you can make use of other words that can be used to substitute for these. The first step to make sure that you are not redundant, really, is to be aware of your own redundancy.

Remember:

There is no better way to learn how to write than to write and to fail and to write and write and write until you succeed.

Be Challenged.

Janina Santos (aka Liah) is a balahurang guro of IELTS and has written this piece for her beloved and equally balahurang mga estudyante. She is also (secretly) a babaeng bakla and sole proprietor of Codswallop. 

The Ladies of Les Miz and Why I Like Eponine Best

Yes, I know, this blogpost is incredibly late. But you see, dear reader, organizing my life and dealing with things we call emotions are very taxing tasks. Excuses put aside, I haven’t been writing much. I plan to make up and keep up.

Finally getting out of my damned mini-depression through reading an inspirational book, crying my eyes out, and telling myself that my heart is less significant than so many other things, I finally watched Les Miserables.  I must admit: I’ve never read the book, nor have I seen the musical. I’m still looking for people kind enough to give me a copy though.

Watching Les Miz was an awesome experience. The characters were raw and very much human: Jean Valjean's strength of character, Javert's obsessive and myopic tendencies, Fantine's self-sacrifice, Enjolras's love for his country.

I love Enjolras. He was an activist ready to put aside his own life for his country. Marius, despite breaking through his elite roots to fight for France (which is enough a reason as to why I'd want to date a guy), loses points for falling in love within a span of 3.98 seconds and for being an overall insensitive jerk. More on this later.

I don't know about other girls, but I would almost always look for a female character that I would identify as the heroine of any story. And thus this mini-nalysis of the femmes of the movie.

The stark contrast between the ladies of Les Miz is very obvious.
Images are stills from the movie as well as promotional pictures.

Anne Hathaway, whose version of "I Dreamed a Dream" I watched several times on Youtube, was as good as I expected her to be (although, unfortunately, I had also watched her Ricky Lo interview). Her portrayal of Fantine made my inner feminist roar for justice. Had I been a character in the novel, I would have probably formed a barricade for a totally different purpose: protecting women's rights. In the movie, Fantine has a child out of wedlock. She leaves the child with the Thenardiers so she can look for work and provide for her daughter. This is not uncommon today. Apparently penis-less men who would voluntarily abandon their children are as common before as it is today. The problem is, in Fantine's time, being a single mom can mean the difference between decent work and and a not-so-decent one. And because it is Les Miz, she gets fired from the factory she works in and had to result to prostitution (as well as selling her glorious hair and a couple of teeth) to provide for her kid. Fantine later dies of consumption, breaking my heart for the first time.

Which leads us to Cosette (played by Amanda Seyfried, but this isn't really about her, is it?). Cosette is many things: Fantine's daughter, Jean Valjean's redemption, Marius's love. Ironically, she also does absolutely nothing, except sing a few songs and go emo for about a couple of minutes. A friend of mine told me that Cosette is not really a character, but more of a symbolism for "hope", but I find her lack of character almost as offensive as Bella Swan. Nothing beats the Twilight protagonist, though. At least Cosette is somewhat self-sacrificing, whereas Bella is just plain selfish. Despite this obvious trait, her passive personality makes her fade into the background. I mean, Javert is obsessive to the point of being borderline immoral, Enjolras is ready to die for France, whereas Cosette is just there, doing nothing, unaware of what is happening. It would have been an interesting to see her character develop. After all, she does have an interesting back story, but I guess Victor Hugo believed that her role as a symbol means she must be as unreal as possible in a cast of tangible personalities. 

A stark contrast to what my officemate called as "bland blonde Cosette" is Eponine. If Cosette is translucent, Eponine is fire. She is introduced as the daughter of of Cosette's former caretakers, a poor, unkempt girl with bad rep who's in love with the unattainable Monsieur Marius. She loses Marius's heart to beautiful Cosette and is friendzoned bigtime. But she dies as the most badass female character in the movie. I mean, after Marius leaves her heart in pieces, she binds her breasts, runs off to the barricade, shoots down a couple of Javert's men, then gets killed by a bullet through the chest so she can save Marius. Wow. Just wow. 

Marius does not pay much attention to Eponine because, in a setting where a woman is desirable mostly if she is well-clothed and beautiful and virtuous, Eponine does not meet the requirements. She is no Cosette. And thus the merits of her character are not appreciated: her bravery, her self-sacrifice to make a loved one happy, her attempt at redemption. 

Eponine's character is much more endearing than Cosette's, simply because instead of standing in the sidelines and being Mary Sue-ish, as in the case of many badly-written literature portraying women, Eponine chose to act. She chose to get down and dirty. She chose to actively participate in creating her destiny rather than stand idly and letting her anyone manipulate it. Her struggle, despite the inevitable tragic end (it is Les Miz, after all), is bittersweet and very much human.