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OFFLINE VS ONLINE SELF

In my online vs offline self meme I put in how I present myself in different kinds of groups. In my offline self there is a large distinction between how I carry myself around other people. My friends would know me as someone who knows how to make and mix different drinks, its become somewhat a part of my identity at this point, sometimes even bleeding into family life. Despite that, my parents would argue that I am someone who studies hard and has the results to prove it, despite how I am in school, which is almost always sleeping. Offline there isn’t much to say, my instagram puts me as someone with high energy despite having almost no activity in facebook, not even having a twitter.

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Post-Binhi Habitus

In all honesty, I wasn’t expecting much in terms of my experience. I’m not very pleasant towards children truth be told so picking the Senior Citizen’s Pride was more ideal for me. That being said, my experience was more than pleasant than expected, this is thanks to the senior’s that I was grouped with.

I’m not the most sociable person when it comes to strangers, I’m not one to strike up a conversation with people unless they talk to me first. To me I think this came about from how I grew up most my life. I’m used to growing up in an environment with already established structures. This became mostly prevalent in my grade school to high school period, which I spent entirely in one school. Because of this, and the school being small enough that we were only one batch, we became a tight knit community, a family. This is something I can see reflected within my community I was under.

In my school life, I grew up with many others, us all having many converging interests in. At that point we were all still students under the same community, one where everyone is more or less even in terms of capital, both social and economic. If ever we would diverge in field, it would mostly be within specific talents and niches, even then everything overlapped each other nicely, student leaders would often play basketball with regular players, a more nerd type of person wouldn’t have problems talking with a more extroverted person. In being together for the majority of my life with the same people with almost the same interests helped me propagate my identity. That was my Habitus, I can say with confidence that much of my personality and interests come from growing with these people.

Interestingly I can also see that within the community. Upon arriving at the venue you can easily feel the camaraderie that they had built up. Similarly to my school life you see that they are people who know how to support each other. Their individual cultures are something that is complementary to each other, they all carry the same demeanor in their perspective, a group culture that holds family in high regard, both blood and not. They saw that in making the community, searching for like minded elderly. Likewise many of them have skills that carry them into roles within the community, such as an accountant or a designated head of the community. Despite the variance in roles, there are hardly any walls that put these people apart. From the small experience I had I can see that much like in my school life these were individuals that have grown into being a family more than a “community”.     

While extremely similar, our biggest difference lies in the structure of our Habitus. While I have one built up from growth within a community, the Senior’s Pride is one that builds on an already established habitus. It’s striking for me because while how we are built up is completely different, the structure itself is more or less the same.

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Spring Awakening Bonus - Freud and Fixation

Spring awakening is a musical originally written and performed in 2006 by Duncan Sheith and Steven Sater based on an 1891 play of the same name. Its 2006 rendition has since been made into several different productions, most recently, one by Ateneo Blue Repertory, directed by Missy Maramara. It follows a group of teenagers going through changes in adulthood. It's a depiction of their struggles and hardships in navigating their emerging sexuality in 19th century Germany. 

In Spring Awakening we are introduced to a group of teenagers in their youth, particularly in their growing age they wish to discover more and more about their sexuality. Main characters include Wendla Bergman, a girl repressed by her parents, Moritz Stiefel, a barely passing student, wishing to learn more, and Melchior Gabor, a radical with well informed ideas. 

All of these characters carry their own individual baggage, Wendla with her desire to come out of her sexual repression, Moritz pressure to succeed, and Melchior’s rebelliousness. From the beginning it’s clear that a majority of the cast wasn’t allowed to properly flourish as individuals, growing in conservative circumstances. In relation to Freud we can say that they are going through a fixation, particularly an anal fixation. Keeping in mind that each of them grew up in a repressive environment, never truly conforming to the power dynamic of their elders, it’s no surprise that they act the way they do.

In all three cases, these fixations are a direct result of the environment that they grew in. As explained, it’s within the anal stage that we get to regulate our physical impulses as well as understand gratification. In contrast to this we have our three main characters, all who grew up in an environment that not only repressed their bodies, but rarely rewarded even excellence. It’s from this repression that the characters obtain their baggage from.

For the Character of Melchior and Wendla, we can say they’re anal expulsive. While, both can be considered as more logical individuals, in much of the play they act impulsvely, we can see that more prominently in their more sexual bursts, we can also consider both of them as rebellious. For Moritz, we can call him anal retentive, in his desperation to appease the demands of the institutions, he ends up searching for order within his life, we can see this prominently when he looks for solutions to pass his class.       

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Social Mirrors Blog Post

I always knew that I was a somewhat cynical person. When writing what I people would think of me I wrote my most prominent problems. 

What I wrote was quite close to what the other person had wrote, except for a few details. Most of the negative things I would have expected them to write was put in a more positive lens. While I wasn’t entirely expecting them to write something negative to my face, It was a pleasant surprise that what they had wrote were direct contrasts to what I mostly think are negative traits. 

What I wrote of as a lack of discipline to others was put in as firm with my convictions. What I wrote off as a lack of self control was describes as not being afraid to be me. It tells me that I have people in my life that actually think positively of me. More so it tells me that I need to look in my life in a better way.

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Increasing Positive Affect Activity 

It was very gratifying to give away all of the chocolates. It helped a lot more that the chocolate itself was very good. Simply said, it just felt nice to give out something and for people to appreciate that. Financially I wouldn’t do it again to be honest, maybe for my closer friends I would buy them food and similar things, but despite how good it felt to just hand out food, I’m not financially stable enough to just do it on a whim.  

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Gratitude Journal - 4/3/19

1) Food

After finishing all of my requirements for school, I went straight back to my condo in Blue residences. After fixing up I went to my friends place where she offered me pizza that she couldn’t finish. Soon after that, another friend offered Mango Float. Both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.

2) Company

I am very much glad that even away from my family at home, I have gained a group of friends that I can trust myself with in college. In and out of school they’re fun and caring.

3) Sleep

There will never be a day where I am not grateful for the sleep that I get. No matter how late it is I’ll always love it when I sleep, and I’ll get to do that tonight.

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What I aimed to do here was to showcase some aspects of my self in a medium that I am comfortable in.

I would lie if I said I grew up more westernized. I speak English as a first language and live in a modern house. I watch more American movies than local, I listen to more American music than local. My sense of clothing is mostly from European sensibilities. 

That doesn’t mean to say that I didn’t grow up with Filipino parents. I grew up with a lot of traditional Pinoy values. I do believe in putting the family first,  I grew up and still am a Catholic. I grew up eating Filipino food. 

And in the center is something I would consider distinctly FIlipino is the optimistic attitude that most Filipinos carry with them. We have the ability to turn any situation and look at it in a brighter side. The phrase “I’m still here” is something that shows perserverance all the while affirming one self despite a hybrid identity