Sundays Glorious Sundays
It’s been an enjoyable experience so far, learning so much every weekend, but it’s demanding to keep up with the readings and lectures. Prior to this, I haven’t been into taking weekend classes. I just read a lot in my spare time, and that’s how I learn. Not that I don’t like the idea of taking classes; I do. But in Manila with the crazy traffic? It’s hard to show up to things. My close friends used to live in Muntinlupa and go to Makati every Saturday just to have German classes at the Goethe Institute. Imagine that drive. I’m too lazy to do it.
Enter the pandemic. Extremely unfortunate turn of events. It comes with a silver lining, however, when it comes to classes. Everything’s now available online, from our own homes! So wonderful. It’s a different story for children who should be interacting with other children and getting the mental stimulation that they need from going to school. For those of us who are grown-up now, it’s more of an advantage. My brother for one who is at college prefers this much more than going to classes every day. He misses his friends, but as far as schoolwork is concerned, he learns more and gets to do more on his own time, which is what he prefers. He likes being self-directed and learning at his own pace. So do I!
So here I am, deep in weekend classes. I am coming to terms with how much of Philippine culture there is to learn and love. While I have lived here in Manila all my life, childhood was weird in the sense that all the books I read were in English and were set in either USA or Britain. I had a weird sense of what was normal — I thought Western traditions and culture are the one true norm and what I was experiencing firsthand should conform to that. At school, we were all encouraged to speak English, I spoke English with my friends. If I could go back in time, I’d tell 5-year old me that we have our own culture which is just as good and valid as Western culture. No culture is “weird” or “strange” because we are all individually equal in ourselves. Each country is their own; each community is their own. Therefore, embrace your culture and learn all that you can about it. At the same time, learn and pick up great stuff from other cultures.
Maybe Filipino kids these days are learning differently. In some ways better, in some ways worse. I find it polarizing. There are kids like my friend Judy’s Seraphina who learns and speaks Filipino and Bisaya alongside her parents’ English and French, but then I know of more kids who don’t learn and speak Filipino anymore. The language of our ancestors, the language of freedom. I should make an effort too.
I’m all praises for Ateneo high school as the teachers taught my brother very early on to love Filipino and to always remember that languages don’t have hierarchy. The school emphasizes that Filipino is a language to be proud of. As compared to my old school which had signs all over saying that “[Name of school] is an English-speaking school”. Get real, man. I hope that school’s policy changed since.
So anyway, weekend classes. I am now used to weekends with structure. I have a favorite column from the New York Times called “Sunday Routine” which picks one New Yorker every week and reports on how they go about their Sunday routine. Some of my favorites so far is Tim Gunn’s and also this one of Vanessa Bayer’s is so refreshingly honest and real! Most Sunday Routiners start their day with the paper and then have some sort of lunch with friends then they pop by the Met. Haha! A routine to present to the world — and Vanessa Bayer is just the realest burst to that cosmopolitan-fantasy bubble. Really funny.
Nobody asked me, again, but you know where this is going! My Sunday routine is to bike around with M (if the cases are not skyrocketing, but if we’re scared to go out then we stay home and I read the Inquirer and the New York Times) and get the best breakfast of my week. It varies on what we feel like at the time but we focus on getting the best we could get. We poke around at stores, walk around, get a good lunch to take home. I have my French class from 12 to 3 (during which I read that week’s The Economist; multitasking during French class is very easy for some reason), then family calls at 4. After that we do yoga. We prep for dinner or if we’re lazy, order dinner. Then we read (I finish up The Economist while M does her Garance, AD, or book du jour) or watch a movie. And we just do whatever relaxing things (no chores) until our early bedtime. Really nice and slow Sundays.
Sunday is the best day of the week for me. Reserving the best of me and my time for myself. Happy and blessed.
Have a great week ahead!
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