Free Your Mind

I was cleaning up (at 12:15 am on a work night... no idea why) and stumbled across one of my babies... so to speak. My sophomore year in college was nothing short of amazing (still don't know how I survived)--I was living with 6 other people (5 of whom I'm still friends with, 4 of whom I still see during the holidays), I took 17 units during the fall and 16 units during the spring--14 of those units being organic chem and two semesters' worth of physics, I wrote and directed for PCN, and on top of that, I had this little tiny literary magazine that I edited/managed for.

...She's not your typical anything... if you think you know here, think again... She's "rageful" inside, a pessimistic optimist... but then again, she's not your typical anything... Blacksheep-ness oozes out of her pores--it is who she is... she has no distinct shape... she can go in and out of phases, read your mind--and at instances, predict the future...

--My staff bio from [m] 17: Renaissance?

One of the first Filipino-American literary magazine to hit the nation, Maganda Magazine is student-run and based at UC Berkeley. I laugh now at all the all-nighters we pulled just to have a voice. A separate ethnic voice... something that we could call our own. Different experiences, different stories. But still... it was (and still is) a forum where we could speak our mind and feel safe. There aren't that many safe places left. 

People take for granted the strides that we've made in the our society. Yes, we should all be equal, but is that reality? And if you are the proletariat speaking up against the privileged, are you safe from persecution? How do you explain to the suburban white-collar kid what it's like to know that the sales rep look at you more closely than other patrons when you enter a store? How do you explain to a white kid what it's like to be colored? How do you explain to a golden child what it's like to be in the shadows? The problem is that people who are on the greener pasture refuse to see the other side. You can't push for more equality if you think that everything is already equal. As they say, ignorance is bliss. ...Uh... I had no idea where I was going with this...

I invested a lot into that little lit mag. And I don't invest cheaply. I think finding it was a sign. I think it's time to bring that mindset back into play. Maybe this is the world's way of telling me to stop investing in things with a negative return. Positive things. More positive think.

P.S. I wish that bio wasn't the last thing of mine that's been published. In my defense, I wrote it after a couple of insomnia-filled days. But I totally need to rectify that.