Prex J.D.V. Ybasco's Blog, page 38

Lang-8日本語Self Introduction

It is not a secret that I have been self-studying Japanese for about a year now. I am quite aware of my progress as I can read blog posts, answer reading articles and even exchange tweets with Japanese netizens. Considering that my main objective in studying is to be able to read manga – Japanese comics- in Nihonggo, nobody can say I haven’t achieved my goal yet. However, as I am about to take my Japanese examination in two weeks, I have to do my absolute best. After all, nobody wants to fail an exam.

One of my students has recommended this website, Lang-8.Com, a tool for language learners who want to hone their reading and writing skills and get feedback from native users. Have I mentioned it is also free?

Learners can post a paragraph in their target language and its translation in their native language (in my case, I have put English rather Filipino). Here is a sample of my short introduction:

Language learners get feedback from native speakers of the L’s target language:

As in this case, I received recommendations on how I can improve my sentences along with explanations.

This is a good way to put to use the grammar structures I have been learning in textbooks and to help me memorize words that I don’t get the chance to use in conversations. I am planning to put my answers in my textbook’s writing activities in Lang-8 and hopefully I can improve really fast.

I also have to do my part and help language learners like myself improve by editing their sentences when I have the time. I cannot just receive and not give, right?

Visit : http://lang-8.com/

違う世界の空を飛んでみたい

違う世界の空を飛んでみたい

＊新しい予定＊

一月に一回ブログを書きます。
一日に三十分日本語を勉強します(仕事前に）
一日に三十分本を読みます（仕事前に）
一日に三十分説を書きます（仕事後に）
一週に一時間日本語を勉強します（土曜日）

To Be Continued~ Goodreads Book Giveaway

Goodreads Book Giveaway


To Be Continued
by Prex J.D.V. Ybasco

Giveaway ends July 31, 2016.

See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

 3 First Edition Copies of a book that will make you choke on your cup of coffee.

The Peculiars

The Peculiars

A Book Review of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

by Jahzeel Dionne V. Ybasco

________________________________________________

“There are peculiars all over the world,” Miss P, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

 

Having a different world where diversity is tolerated and encouraged is a famous theme in the fantasy genre that it does not come as a surprise Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children reminds me of Harry Potter, Pendragon, and X-Men . Special beings mingling with normal humans, wise old people taking care of the young ones and passing on the legacy, protagonists having to live up to their peculiarity, their gifts, the nature of their powers–this formula contributes to MPHPC being a page-turner.

Apart from that, foreshadowing has been played quite well~a little too well perhaps or is it just in my nature to notice those things? I am quite neutral to works which small sentences lead to even bigger events but I love subtlety. Given that the novel has been written in the first person narrative, most of the words and how they are presented make it easier for me to know what is going to happen in the next chapter–even the next paragraph. An attack without warning has a bigger effect than one heralded with trumpets. Then again, probably it is just me.

 

Those photos! If there is one thing I immensely enjoyed in the novel, it is the set of photos. The characters live in my head as I read but it is helpful to look at the photos of what Riggs wants his readers to see. There was a time I dreaded looking at the next page because the character has been described so well, so scary, so real and seeing at the picture would then engrave that image in my mind. However, I still had to look, so turn the page I did.

 

The fantasy-hungry child in me immensely has enjoyed the novel. The 20 something person has second thoughts. It makes me question the idea of time travelling. I am not a science geek but I find the concept of the loop quite confusing– doesn’t it affect the present in any way? If the loop has not been affected by external factors, then it will continue moving in a loop. However, since I grew up in a very different generation, I have come to understand the significance of any small action as it may have an impact on the future. Considering that Jacob is a lead character in the series, while reading the last chapters of the novel, I asked myself, “If Jacob suddenly meets his grandfather in the loop, what will happen?” An even bigger problem is, owing to circumstances, the injured Miss Peregrine cannot make the loop again, forcing the peculiars to leave the confines of what they have called home. If other people saw the peculiars, wouldn’t that change their future too? And there is even a probability they won’t see and be with Jacob at all, much less need his help.

 

I am looking forward to reading the sequel of this very promising series. After all, the first part only serves as a taste of this peculiar yet astonishingly beautiful world Riggs has created. Most probably, the Library of Souls holds answers to my questions regarding the loop and I absolutely have to know how Miss Peregrine is doing –she definitely reminds me of Professor McGonagall.

 

“Mutants and Proud” -Xmen

 

~~~



I bought Ransom Rigg’s Trilogy and the box-set came with great individual photographs of the peculiars. Talk about a peculiar book. However, I will continue reading the sequels once I have gotten around to finishing rereading the Harry Potter series for this year. Good old habits die hard.

 

30 April 2016 Written in Blood Feature

I have had the honor of being featured in Richard Schiver’s site, Written in Blood. 

Please read it here:

http://www.richardschiver.com/2016/04/fridays-5-with-prex-jd-v-ybasco.html

Writers read.

Writers read. And I like to read good stuff. #WriterWednesday #MissPeregrinesHomeforPeculiarChildren #RansomRiggs

I am a Writer.

The closest I can get to Ukraine

相棒は私の本を読みます。

Honored to be part of a Brit’s collection.

They say you’ve got to read and accept negative reviews to improve as a writer. Writers of classic novels have long been 6 feet under and never met today’s high school students who could help them but that is one thing that sets them apart. Reviewers review. Writers write.  I have gone beyond building my collection now that I am part of someone else’s and that’s the biggest reward any Writer can get.

Some kind of ADDICTION

Some kind of ADDICTION

Jahzeel Dionne V. Ybasco

______________________________________________________________

 

They say that in order to forget about an old addiction, you have to find a new one.

 

I have to be honest. About a year ago, a mania took over me: marketing my book. I remember juggling the scanty breaks I had to memorize Hiragana, Katakana and Kanjis and promote To Be Continued. Trolling Goodreads, Amazon, and even Book Review sites, I sent hundreds of emails to a number of people to read and review my book. The hunger was real–I just had to find that one person who could say something good about my baby, and then another, and another. It all became too much until I could not recognize who I was anymore. Such was the life of an amateur self-published Author.

 

Then, one of my first acquaintances in publishing wrote a blog about how he turned out to be a Marketing Agent and not a writer. I was ashamed of myself when I figured out, I had been living the same kind of life for a number of weeks–not that there was something wrong about being an Agent because there is none; it was just a path I did not choose to take. I was so preoccupied with marketing my book, getting rejected, nursing my broken heart, getting positive feedback, feeling over the moon–in that cycle– I did not even have time to write a chapter for my next novel. “Nobody stops being a writer” and it was so embarrassing to stop caring about doing  what I loved just because I wanted to look for someone who would read the first product of my sleepless toils.

 

Depression hit me hard. Not as hard as some people in the world to drive me to insanity and cut people from my life. The better term I guess for this was frustration. Was I trying to get famous? Believed me when I say  I laughed a hollow one because I had not even thought about that. I enjoyed how words and stories weave inside my head, flow through my fingertips and stain my paper and I still do. Was it wrong to share that creativity to the world? No it was not. What my biggest mistake was I forgot that I had started writing for myself, without having any regard to what people might say about my works. I bore my first children in Fanfiction.Net and let them roam around freely, and whether readers found them interesting or boring I charged every review to my experience. Why was it more difficult to let go of my novel then? When my thoughts could not reach beyond this boundary, I told myself, it was about time to put my pen down and look for other things that could inspire writing again. I needed a distraction.

 

Another whirlwind of addiction came and it swept me away with it. I got in touch with Foreign music again, a reminder why I started blogging in the first place, Music. Getting busy because I enjoyed Japanese and Korean music helped boost my enthusiasm in learning 日本語. I could pick up words and even write faster in Japanese. At last, there was something I could do so easily!

 

The plus side of it all was I learned to enjoy making friends online which I honestly find difficult to do in real life. It was so much easier creating an alter ego whose persona nobody could judge. There were challenging moments because nobody could pierce through the shield called internet. It was difficult to love wholeheartedly and receiving love came with a tinge of insincerity. The people I chose and who chose me in return were different though. I could not help but trust them.

 

Then, I decided to give my online friends copies of my book. Little did I know that this could put more pressure on me. A piece of me could be judged–what is even worse was the idea that they would not read nor judge it all because it was mine and they would rather have a great relationship with whom they thought I was–another image that I built to protect myself. I laid myself bare, subject to scrutiny.

 

I was back to square one. Before I knew it, I started getting busier, trying to forget what these people might say about me or my book. The internet proved to be a good distraction once more because I was able to see book review jobs~~I could review novels and get copies of them for free. It was perfect. I barely had enough time to worry about the addictions that became too much to bear. However, I missed those who gave me a reason to be more accommodating in social networks. Yes, I could listen to the group we follow, I could buy the rest of the CDs, I could have followed the group without interacting with them but to my surprise I couldn’t. It was not as fun.

 

I can conclude my blog here, in a state of depression… or hopelessness, whatever I want to call it. However, comes with it is an anticipation of acceptance and that is what I am addicted to.

 

Seriously, I think I need a rehab.

Running for Happiness

Running for Happiness

by Jahzeel Dionne V. Ybasco

____________________________________________________

4:02 AM

For the nth time you asked yourself why you had chosen to run.

It was a twenty-one kilometer marathon that started at 4 am. With that distance and God knows how much time you needed to cover it, you couldn’t help but think of seemingly mundane things. As you breathed in that sharp cold morning air, thoughts kept pouring in—or out with your sweat, mingled with the carbon dioxide you exhaled.

4:45 AM

Your feet kept with the beat of the many instruments pounding in your ears. Surely nobody could contest, music was the best companion in a long run. Even the ones in foreign languages—which by the way dominated your playlist—motivated you to run faster and harder. After all, you once had dreamed to be a performer yourself so you could imagine yourself singing or dancing to the tunes instead of running that boring distance. There was satisfaction in being able to exert more effort every time you heard the bridge of your favorite song, and blood continued to pump in your ears.

5:15 AM

The first light of day hit your eyes. How the darkest of blues changed into the lightest one in a blink of an eye, you could not fathom.

An amazing sight.

So many are things that we cannot control. Should we invest our time worrying about them? Say for example, when we rely our happiness and satisfaction on what people say, we depend on them to exist. Once they stop showing appreciation, you cease to.

That was why you had chosen to run. You had not let anyone dictate what could make you happy because it was your own race to take, you had your own number. Everyone was given a chance to take that path, but you set your own pace, and you had your own strategy because you had been aware that what had worked for others might not work for you. That was the variable you could control and that made you happy.

6:00 AM

It was tiring and your legs started to cramp. You began to labor on your breathing and each inhale stabbed that already painful stitch in your stomach.

But you kept running.

Should you start believing in Miracles? It was a matter of choice and you chose to believe in that 21-kilometer run. You were not looking for a religion because you knew you would not find your salvation there. Neither was it to prove anything but to conquer who you had been the previous year. You realized you became better. You were running towards that Being that gave you strength.

7:08 AM

Tears fell in streams.

Your eyes found the finish line. The marathon was not as difficult as before. That was the most overwhelming part. It was not hard because it was not about anybody, nor for anyone. You finished the run you had chosen to take part of.

And you found Happiness.