I feel like I should post more often, but I'm in such a set routine that there's not really much to say. I go to school. I have too much work to do. I'm disgruntled. I'm writing a paper about the ways in which early Filipino nationalists manipulated historical narrative to legitimize their nationalist aspirations. A series of concepts that's pretty difficult to translate into Tagalog. The fact that a lot of what the paper is about is how nationalists like Rizal tried, with varying degrees of success, to apply (impose?) Western ideas like the nation-state to the Philippines makes the process slightly humorous, but not any easier. It's a nice little post-modern interlude to my day.

Actually, it's not particularly nice at all. I don't really know what I was thinking choosing such a dense topic. It's a subject I know quite a bit about, and I've written on related topics before, so I knew all the relevant source materials, and I thought I could do it. Now that it's too late to do new research, though, I'm kicking myself for not writing about folk dances or something of that ilk (descriptive rather than analytical).

A lot of Manila is still flooded due to the second serious typhoon in the last few weeks, so schools have been closed across the city, including la Salle. This doesn't get me out of class, as we've just been meeting in the hotel, but it does mean that the library is closed and I can't get some of the reference material I desperately need. On the upside, I can now attend class in flip-flops and pyjamas, and take a nap in my room during lunch. (I'm tired all the time)

I'm trying to post a picture of me hiding from the monsoon rains to complete the scene, but the computer won't cooperate, so I'll just stop here.