Would you look at that. Genuinely happy and giddy faces of people who now knew what it meant to be taught in the grand manner. And, what do you know — the one class I expected to dislike the most ended up being the class I loved and enjoyed this semester.

Perhaps I'll save the list of reasons for later, that is, after the finals, when I have the right to say I've actually survived it. (Crossing my fingers!) Just putting this up to here to remind myself that there is so much joy in the learning of law; sometimes it just takes one brilliant person to make you realize that.


*


Also: here's an excerpt from a case I just finished digesting for this class. Perfection, as always, from Justice Isagani Cruz. He's easily one of my favorite justices ever.

This may as well be the best introduction to a case I've ever read.

"We are back to the early 1900's in the cool regions of the Mountain Province, setting of many legends of adventure and romance among the highlanders of the North. Our story is not as fanciful, involving as it does not a rivalry for the hand of a beautiful Igorot maiden but a prosaic dispute over a piece of land. Even so, as in those tales of old, the issue shall be decided in favor of the just and deserving albeit according to the dictates not of the heart but of the law.

The hero of this story we shall call Old Man Tumpao although at the time it all began he was still a young and vigorous man. He had a first wife by whom he begot three children, who are the private respondents in this case. Upon her death, he took to himself a second wife, by whom he had no issue but who had two children she had "adopted" according to the practice of the Igorots then. It is their children who, with some others, are the petitioners in this case.

The facts are as simple as the ancient hills."

— Mang-oy v. CA, G.R. No. L-27421 (September 12, 1986)

Who says there's no prose/poetry in ponencias?


__

Labels: law school

For about a month or so now, I've been obsessing on calligraphy posts that Instagram has been referring to me. I have no idea how Instagram managed to figure out my yet-to-be-awakened interest on typography and longhand, but it did, thanks to the "People You May Like" page. It led me to a couple of local and international artists very much into the craft of calligraphy, and before I knew it, half of my feed was filled with fancy scribbles. (The other half being puppies. Heehee.)

Unknown to a lot of people, I am a stress-doodler. When I am most anxious or frustrated, I doodle a lot - quotes, lyrics, even shapes. Sometimes I just scribble swirls and random patterns. You can tell it's almost exam week when the corners of my notebooks and reviewers suddenly have Incubus lyrics on them. I enjoy the physical act of writing. I hoard pens of all colors and brands; I have stocks of notebooks and pad papers of all sizes. Yes, I love all kinds of writing. (This is probably why a high school classmate of mine, who once became a seatmate, thought "Creative Writing" was equivalent to "Creative Lettering and Fancy Handwriting." HA HA HAHAHA #truestory)

Which is why I kept asking myself the last few weeks, "Why haven't I tried calligraphy?" I have no idea why I never considered it before. It makes sense to have it as a hobby, given the amount of doodling I do. Maybe it's just that I never really saw people I knew doing it. It wasn't so accessible an idea to me. Until now.

A few weeks ago, I bought myself two calligraphy markers from National Bookstore and spent an entire night - guiltlessly - just writing down the choruses to Taylor Swift's new singles. And just over the weekend, my good friend Jio bought for me actual calligraphy supplies: two nibs, two pen holders (one straight and one oblique), and a small jar of ink.

And now, here I am, trying (and failing!) to make elegant scribbles in longhand. I guess I'm pretty lucky my cursive is quite decent, thanks to the Paulinian handwriting the nuns forced us to learn in grade school. It's actually overwhelming! Holding the pen takes a lot getting used to. So far, I'm still committing a lot of rookie mistakes. (Please forgive some messy letters in the picture above!) But it's great fun. It's relaxing, in the same way my regular, ordinary doodling makes me feel, but it's also challenging, which is always a good feeling to have. It's a nice distraction from the rigidity of law school.

A really, really fancy distraction.

*cue The Cure background music*


Reward for surviving another day of Tax (me), braving the Friday rush hour (him), and remembering milestones like the anniversary (both of us): Dinner at Abe in Trinoma!

I think it's only our first time to be sitting across each other on a date. The restaurant was full and we didn't have much of a choice, but it was fun pretending we were on our first date :))

We had gising-gising, gambas, and lamb adobo - which were all so incredibly delicious, we wanted to shake hands, high-five and then mano with Abe himself. (Pretty sure he's a cool lolo.) Then we had leche flan, which is the best thing on any Filipino restaurant menu ever. It is nectar from the gods; it is a little slice of heaven. It never disappoints. I can say the same for the boyfriend and this relationship thus far - but that'll be too cheesy, so I'll stop it right here :P

Happy 365th day since we decided to put it up on Facebook!

Many moons ago, I had a crush on my classmate in PE.

Every Wednesday and Friday, this song would be on loop inside my head. It was the perfect encapsulation of a happy crush. It was a crush that never went acknowledged. I didn't even bother considering if he reciprocated the feeling in the slightest. I was content walking beside him, talking about mundane things like the weather and birthdays. Oh to be sixteen, and to be partnered with a boy cute enough to make you want to walk for two hours, twice a week, for your first semester in UP. No matter that he wasn't yours, no matter that you shared only pleasantries and phone numbers. It wasn't like anything was ever going to come out of it.

Come sweeten every afternoon, I'd sing to myself.

Didn't think he'd actually do, all these years later.


*


It's been a year since you and I first went to Mass together and updated our status online. We've been going out for months before that, but we wanted the 11-12-13 date to match (because we're baduy like that!) Yep, it couldn't have been more ~*official*~ than God AND Facebook.

People may say "It's only been a year," but wow, if that is what a year with you feels like, then I can't wait for all the rest.

let all the things you mean to me
come tumbling out my mouth

(Let's try something out for a change. I must admit I haven't been able to read as much books for leisure as I used to because of law school. But often my "literary craving" is satiated by a really great article, story, or essay I come across in the Internet. As you may know, I'm more of a long-form fan more than any other kind of writing, and while I appreciate novels, it is almost usually this structure that appeals most to me, as someone who reads and someone who writes. So I guess this is my attempt at sharing that to you guys. Here goes: Required Reading.)








I've been a fan of the New York Times' Modern Love series for quite a few years now, and I can honestly say that every single time, each article makes me go, "Damn, I wish I would have written that." Not necessarily because I could relate and not necessarily because anything similar has happened to me, but because each one is so wonderfully crafted - in a very easy, light, but nonetheless profound - it makes me want to try to write the same way, if only I had the time.

I haven't really come across an article in Modern Love where I truly identified with the writer and the kind of love she was writing about. (I guess the loves that I've had aren't very... modern?) 

But I've always believed that that's an indication of a great piece of writing: when it doesn't necessarily affect you directly on an emotional level, but it actually makes you want to go out there and write, just because you feel that the piece has revealed something to you in its form. Somewhere between those lines is a style, is a rhythm. And you just feel compelled to recreate it.

This article is one such example.

"How love reveals itself is sometimes a slow process, the gradual accretion of all the seemingly mundane acts of kindness, sacrifice, mindfulness and even bad behavior two people share. Sarah's act was an instance of what love looks like, stripped of all the usual bells and whistles. To have the opportunity to witness that, regardless of the circumstances, left me feeling like a fortunate man."

— In A Small Bag, She Packed All Our Hopes by Tim McEown

It's always the little things, isn't it? And how the smallness is magnified by the prose. How I long to keep writing with the same kind of power, the kind that amplifies and finds meaning even in the quietest of things.


__

Labels: required reading

Would you look at that. Genuinely happy and giddy faces of people who now knew what it meant to be taught in the grand manner. And, what do you know — the one class I expected to dislike the most ended up being the class I loved and enjoyed this semester.

Perhaps I'll save the list of reasons for later, that is, after the finals, when I have the right to say I've actually survived it. (Crossing my fingers!) Just putting this up to here to remind myself that there is so much joy in the learning of law; sometimes it just takes one brilliant person to make you realize that.


*


Also: here's an excerpt from a case I just finished digesting for this class. Perfection, as always, from Justice Isagani Cruz. He's easily one of my favorite justices ever.

This may as well be the best introduction to a case I've ever read.

"We are back to the early 1900's in the cool regions of the Mountain Province, setting of many legends of adventure and romance among the highlanders of the North. Our story is not as fanciful, involving as it does not a rivalry for the hand of a beautiful Igorot maiden but a prosaic dispute over a piece of land. Even so, as in those tales of old, the issue shall be decided in favor of the just and deserving albeit according to the dictates not of the heart but of the law.

The hero of this story we shall call Old Man Tumpao although at the time it all began he was still a young and vigorous man. He had a first wife by whom he begot three children, who are the private respondents in this case. Upon her death, he took to himself a second wife, by whom he had no issue but who had two children she had "adopted" according to the practice of the Igorots then. It is their children who, with some others, are the petitioners in this case.

The facts are as simple as the ancient hills."

— Mang-oy v. CA, G.R. No. L-27421 (September 12, 1986)

Who says there's no prose/poetry in ponencias?


__

Labels: law school

For about a month or so now, I've been obsessing on calligraphy posts that Instagram has been referring to me. I have no idea how Instagram managed to figure out my yet-to-be-awakened interest on typography and longhand, but it did, thanks to the "People You May Like" page. It led me to a couple of local and international artists very much into the craft of calligraphy, and before I knew it, half of my feed was filled with fancy scribbles. (The other half being puppies. Heehee.)

Unknown to a lot of people, I am a stress-doodler. When I am most anxious or frustrated, I doodle a lot - quotes, lyrics, even shapes. Sometimes I just scribble swirls and random patterns. You can tell it's almost exam week when the corners of my notebooks and reviewers suddenly have Incubus lyrics on them. I enjoy the physical act of writing. I hoard pens of all colors and brands; I have stocks of notebooks and pad papers of all sizes. Yes, I love all kinds of writing. (This is probably why a high school classmate of mine, who once became a seatmate, thought "Creative Writing" was equivalent to "Creative Lettering and Fancy Handwriting." HA HA HAHAHA #truestory)

Which is why I kept asking myself the last few weeks, "Why haven't I tried calligraphy?" I have no idea why I never considered it before. It makes sense to have it as a hobby, given the amount of doodling I do. Maybe it's just that I never really saw people I knew doing it. It wasn't so accessible an idea to me. Until now.

A few weeks ago, I bought myself two calligraphy markers from National Bookstore and spent an entire night - guiltlessly - just writing down the choruses to Taylor Swift's new singles. And just over the weekend, my good friend Jio bought for me actual calligraphy supplies: two nibs, two pen holders (one straight and one oblique), and a small jar of ink.

And now, here I am, trying (and failing!) to make elegant scribbles in longhand. I guess I'm pretty lucky my cursive is quite decent, thanks to the Paulinian handwriting the nuns forced us to learn in grade school. It's actually overwhelming! Holding the pen takes a lot getting used to. So far, I'm still committing a lot of rookie mistakes. (Please forgive some messy letters in the picture above!) But it's great fun. It's relaxing, in the same way my regular, ordinary doodling makes me feel, but it's also challenging, which is always a good feeling to have. It's a nice distraction from the rigidity of law school.

A really, really fancy distraction.

*cue The Cure background music*


Reward for surviving another day of Tax (me), braving the Friday rush hour (him), and remembering milestones like the anniversary (both of us): Dinner at Abe in Trinoma!

I think it's only our first time to be sitting across each other on a date. The restaurant was full and we didn't have much of a choice, but it was fun pretending we were on our first date :))

We had gising-gising, gambas, and lamb adobo - which were all so incredibly delicious, we wanted to shake hands, high-five and then mano with Abe himself. (Pretty sure he's a cool lolo.) Then we had leche flan, which is the best thing on any Filipino restaurant menu ever. It is nectar from the gods; it is a little slice of heaven. It never disappoints. I can say the same for the boyfriend and this relationship thus far - but that'll be too cheesy, so I'll stop it right here :P

Happy 365th day since we decided to put it up on Facebook!

Many moons ago, I had a crush on my classmate in PE.

Every Wednesday and Friday, this song would be on loop inside my head. It was the perfect encapsulation of a happy crush. It was a crush that never went acknowledged. I didn't even bother considering if he reciprocated the feeling in the slightest. I was content walking beside him, talking about mundane things like the weather and birthdays. Oh to be sixteen, and to be partnered with a boy cute enough to make you want to walk for two hours, twice a week, for your first semester in UP. No matter that he wasn't yours, no matter that you shared only pleasantries and phone numbers. It wasn't like anything was ever going to come out of it.

Come sweeten every afternoon, I'd sing to myself.

Didn't think he'd actually do, all these years later.


*


It's been a year since you and I first went to Mass together and updated our status online. We've been going out for months before that, but we wanted the 11-12-13 date to match (because we're baduy like that!) Yep, it couldn't have been more ~*official*~ than God AND Facebook.

People may say "It's only been a year," but wow, if that is what a year with you feels like, then I can't wait for all the rest.

let all the things you mean to me
come tumbling out my mouth

(Let's try something out for a change. I must admit I haven't been able to read as much books for leisure as I used to because of law school. But often my "literary craving" is satiated by a really great article, story, or essay I come across in the Internet. As you may know, I'm more of a long-form fan more than any other kind of writing, and while I appreciate novels, it is almost usually this structure that appeals most to me, as someone who reads and someone who writes. So I guess this is my attempt at sharing that to you guys. Here goes: Required Reading.)








I've been a fan of the New York Times' Modern Love series for quite a few years now, and I can honestly say that every single time, each article makes me go, "Damn, I wish I would have written that." Not necessarily because I could relate and not necessarily because anything similar has happened to me, but because each one is so wonderfully crafted - in a very easy, light, but nonetheless profound - it makes me want to try to write the same way, if only I had the time.

I haven't really come across an article in Modern Love where I truly identified with the writer and the kind of love she was writing about. (I guess the loves that I've had aren't very... modern?) 

But I've always believed that that's an indication of a great piece of writing: when it doesn't necessarily affect you directly on an emotional level, but it actually makes you want to go out there and write, just because you feel that the piece has revealed something to you in its form. Somewhere between those lines is a style, is a rhythm. And you just feel compelled to recreate it.

This article is one such example.

"How love reveals itself is sometimes a slow process, the gradual accretion of all the seemingly mundane acts of kindness, sacrifice, mindfulness and even bad behavior two people share. Sarah's act was an instance of what love looks like, stripped of all the usual bells and whistles. To have the opportunity to witness that, regardless of the circumstances, left me feeling like a fortunate man."

— In A Small Bag, She Packed All Our Hopes by Tim McEown

It's always the little things, isn't it? And how the smallness is magnified by the prose. How I long to keep writing with the same kind of power, the kind that amplifies and finds meaning even in the quietest of things.


__

Labels: required reading

Hello, I'm Karla Bernardo. If you Google my name, you will find the Wikipedia entry of a Canadian serial-killer (and trust me, you do not want to read about that - but I'm sure you will because now you're curious), which is why I suggest you type Bombastarr instead so you can stalk me better.

I spent eight-and-a-half years of my life in the University of the Philippines, where I graduated with degrees in Creative Writing and Juris Doctor. It is also where I learned how to speak a bit of Italian, got a taste of the best tapsilog, and took striptease for PE.

I love telling stories, as much as I enjoy finding them.

<center><font style="color: #ffffff;">____</font>Want <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/09096636074047764491">more</a>?</center><br>

Featured Works

Stargirl (Cover story for Nadine Lustre, Scout, January-February 2017)
Surreal / So Real (at Scout)
Ode to a Great Love's 17-year-old Self (Love.Life, Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Postcard from Diliman (Youngblood, Philippine Daily Inquirer)

Writer for Philippine Law Register
A Call to Arms (January 2017)
Expecting the Expected (March 2016)

Former Writer for Stache Magazine
The Hero's Journey (June 2013)
The 8 People You Become In Your Youth (June 2013)
The Best Bad Idea That Is Argo (April 2013)
Mike Ross Remembers Everything You Don't (August 2012)
Style Between the Riffs (August 2012)
Book Lovers Never Sleep Alone (June 2012)
A Spectrum of Change (December 2011)
Digital Art (October 2011)
Elements of Style (June 2011)
In Her White Dress (All-Art April 2011 issue)

Morning After Pill (Fervore: Literary Folio 2013, UP Portia Sorority)
How To Make a Blueberry Cheesecake (Kalas: Kalasag Literary Folio 2011, UP College of Arts and Letters)
January 14th (100: The Hundreds Project, UP Writer's Club)

An Ode to The Pillow Book (at New-Slang)
Introductions (at TeenInk)
One by One (at TeenInk)

   

Recently

27(.5)
Endgame
Standout Songs: "Overkill" on Scrubs
You'll be out of the dark, yeah you'll get your shot
Music of the Night
Marrakesh Treaty: More access to books for the vis...
How we weep and laugh at the same thing
Something
Conflict resolution
Book frustrations

This Is How It Doesn't Start

this is how it doesn't start, in eleven parts

Labels

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Archives

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Got a comment, question, violent reaction, love letter, or random piece of information you want to share with me? Just fire away. I don't bite.

(I changed my form and went back to Freedback because Ask.fm's being a bitch, requiring people to sign up for accounts before asking questions. Because I love you guys, I tweaked my ask box a bit, so that the questions will now go directly to my e-mail, but I'll be posting the answers still on my Ask.fm for convenience. TL;DR - I'll still be getting your questions so no worries. You're still free to harass me / send me your love.)

Answers

Most Frequently Asked Question

Are you a pornstar?
No, I am not a pornstar, stripper, or your friendly neighborhood call girl. It's just a fancy pseudonym with a long history, and two R's. Rawr.

Bombastarr is my personal blog and my little corner in the Internet since 2005. Yes, I started writing here when I was 13 years old (aka when I was very angsty, hormonal, and always gushing at the littlest things) -- ergo, you'd have to forgive me if you come across an old post that reeks of immaturity and slightly unpolished grammar. I did a lot of growing up here, and from the looks of it, there's still a lot of growing up to do, so I don't think I'll be leaving this place any time soon.

The domain, Bombastarr.com, was purchased on June 2014 and launched on July 2014, on the blog's ninth year (and fifth month, to be exact).

It's crazy to think that this blog is now thirteen years old, because (1) that seems like an eternity in internet years, and (2) that means if my blog were a kid, it's a teenager! That's insane.

Here's to more tales, explosive and otherwise.

If you've been living under a rock and think I'm a threat to world peace or an object of covetousness, sorry to disappoint you, folks: it's just a fancy pseudonym.

As in most things, it started in high school. It began as a joke between me and a couple of friends during our freshman year. We were practicing for a field demonstration dance which involved the use of shawls, and being the crazy-always-trying-to-be-funny person that I was (or I always attempted to be) I started doing poses with the garment. Someone started taking my picture using my phone, and one shot looked like I was posing for those B-list movies (or should it be R-list, as in R-rated?) of the vegetable-nomenclature variety. #IKYWIM. Hence, the word, "Bombastarr." Yes, very cheeky, I know, but for a 13-year-old, it was quirky enough to figure as a username. That was 2005, right around the time I trying to decide on a URL for a new blog. It's been a lot of years since, and what started as a joke became something I've eventually embraced as an identity.

Despite the many other chances I've gotten to permanently move (to Multiply, Livejournal, Tumblr, Wordpress; to a bigger platform where I can earn or use the blog as a venue for commerce), I've come to realize that Bombastarr is something I can never truly leave behind. It is a place I've grown to appreciate and love because it is a place I can call my own. It's a venue for my rants, my views, my writing. It is home, and it is who I am.

Bombastarr is a glimpse of my life: the thoughts, ideas, and stories that shape it into what it is, and what it will still become. This journal has been with me for all my crazy, often embarrassing adventures, but I'm sure there will be more anecdotes and feelings and people to write about. Which is something I'm really looking forward to. After all, you know what they say about the greatest stories - sometimes, there's still a lot that's left unwritten.

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