Invasion: Interpersonal Distances

The skyscraper buildings seen on television are the towering empires of the new industry. Think of how men and machines work together to create these establishments. From a vacated place springs another establishment wherein sooner or later will be filled with people before and after its construction. Back to the times of the good old carpenter – the saw swinging its teeth, cutting through wood and the hammer beating down nails. To pulley the roof up where a fellow carpenter waves his hands.

These tedious processes further developed and learned through the science of architecture. Homes were the first sprouts of the efforts in this field of study. There was already the need to be sheltered.

The renovated People’s Park was now as colorful as my grandmother’s garden, where I used to remember seeing blooming flowers of different kinds. Many people walk about. I was strolling alone hoping that somehow I could escape the pressures of school work. I needed time alone that is. But there were many people there. It’s funny why I didn’t consider this all the while when the park’s name slapped it on my face. People, yes I remember Lara Bernadette C. Avila’s study. Then and there I thought I had gotten away.

What made her research interesting is that she weaved sentimentality with the technicality of her field of study. Her degree of Architecture- in precise measurements of construction and pricing of the materials to be used- her study introduced a fresher new ambience and solution for the unlikely modes of invasion of the elderly in Davao City.

Invasion. After a few minutes of walking, I decided to sit on a bench. I was in the center of the whole area of the park. Imagining the top view of the park, I saw ant-like figures moving about each other. They reminded me of the dots that were plotted on the grid that Avila made to illustrate the interpersonal distances of people. I closed my eyes for that moment hoped that it wouldn’t rain for there were people, I mean couples, hugged tight each other. Hands- they were everywhere: on necks, on waists, over shoulders and enclosed hands. There was some kind of invasion here, or so I thought.

In the research, Avila argued that there is a certain amount of distance maintained by each person in their interaction with other people. A personal “bubble” exists in each individual- that of which is like a “portable invisible territory.” She gave clear-cut differentiation of the terms personal space and territory from the book Environmental Psychology: Territories are relatively stationary areas often with visible boundaries that regulate who will interact. Territoriality is more of a group-based process; personal space, on the other hand, is on an individual-level process (Bell et. al). Avila’s subjects of study were the elderly in health care homes such as in the Co Su Gian Center for the Elderly, Sta. Clara Stepdown Care and Center for the Elderly Foundation, Inc. in Tugbok in the poblcaion area of Davao City. She delimited her study of the elderly whose ages range from 65 and above.

Interpersonal distances. I looked around me there were many people. Some sat on the other benches across me. There were others who were busy with there cellphones. A gang of boys, dressed in black shirts, were eyeing two passers-by. At that very moment, I wanted no one to sit beside me. I felt that my personal space expanded because these people were for me strangers.

It was the researcher Edward T. Hall who introduced proxemic theory. It is how humans unconsciously and consciously structures microspace- the distance between man in the conduct of daily transactions, the organization of space in his/her house and buildings, and ultimately the layout of his/her town.

Proxemic research is based on the concept of territoriality, a basic concept in the study on animal behavior which an organism naturally lays claim to an area and defends it against other members of the same or other species. ET Hall investigated man’s use of personal space in contrast with the fixed feature space and informal space. Fixed feature space is characterized by unmovable boundaries while semi-fixed feature space is defined by fixed boundaries such as furniture. Informal space is the most significant for an individual because it includes the four distances maintained in encounters with others. These distances as classified by ET Hall are the intimate, personal, social, and public distance. Several factors were considered in measuring the distances of people. Such includes degree of relationship, gender, age, and physical features of both environment and the person involved.

Avila’s research aimed to measure the interpersonal distances of the elderly and to know the effects of such factors in their interpersonal distances. Avila noted how in the Philippines much of the concern was on medications for curing diseases and little attention was given to the psychological needs of the elderly. In the healthcare homes, Avila gathered data and reconciled it with her project proposals. Her facility models were those which allowed comfort for the elderly. All her efforts underlie intentions for the well-being of the elderly. Her research about interpersonal distances of the elderly can increase amount of physical comfort, improve communication among the community, and increase group productivity and effectiveness. Her research will be used as reference in designing elderly facilities in regions with similar cases.

soccer here

fun

soccer is fun

well guys if you want fun

have FUN

Clothing Souls

Agnes, until her father’s death was an obedient daughter, marri <!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>

Agnes, until her father’s death was an obedient daughter, married a Mandaya man. It is common in Mati that the most recurring tribal groups are that of the Mandayas and Muslims. Agnes’s parents came from the Visayan region.

Someone Else’s Deed

Arnel, he thought, was a name no nobler than some other people’s names. The mother had first a daughter followed by two sons each with a year interval, and settling for that found no need for another child. Shrugging it off as another blessing, the husband had trouble sleeping after the late night annunciation of his wife’s fourth pregnancy. That name was a reminder of an ill-timed birth. It neither stood for melted together names of both parents and was even less appealing compared to names as Theabelle, Christoff, and Francis. If those weren’t his siblings’ names and himself not christened Arnel he wouldn’t have had the strength to crumple the signed letter in his hand as he stood by the church’s entrance scanning for a seat.

The recommendation letter on his right hand prevented him from making the sign of the cross, or so he reasoned. San Pedro Church stood in the heart of the city; against the towering pink painted City Hall building, in contrast to the church’s gray scheme.

Taginting Sa Kanyang Utak: An Essay

“Mariang Makiling” written by Eli Ang Barroso is a piece belonging from Luzon and Southern Tagalog literature. In its short story form, the story was expressed in the richness of the Tagalog language. At the beginning, the reader is already bombarded with the words of the language that seem to have initiated romantic elements found in the story.

Soccerly Yours

This is a photo of my whole bunch of soccer family. We’re inviting anyone to join us. It is always fun to have good pals behind you.

Then and there

I see

what lies close

as a touch enveloping

friends

then and there

are everywhere.

The Revolutionary Road

Last night, me and my boardmates watched this movie. earlier that morning our fiction teacher Prof. Montes told us that if we want to cry over a novel read Yate’s The Revolutionary Road.”

It was such a tragic story that made me feel like crying if not for other people’s presence. I don’t want to end up like them. But you should really watch it, it has many gender issues wherein both roles of man and wife are explored.

Forgive me, I really can’t have a movie review about it because I don’t yet know how it feels to be in their shoes. But this I can say the movie rocks!(Not to mention that me and the character share the same name “April”).

A Review: Salamanca

my choice for the scond book review is a novel written by Dean

“Power of an Artist: Salamanca“

1. Introduction

My choice for the second book review is a novel written by Dean Francis Alfar entitled Salamanca, which won the Palanca Grand Prize Award for the Novel in 2005 as published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press.

Dean Francis Alfar is a playwright, essayist, and fictionist whose works are performed and published locally and abroad. He has won 8 Don Carlos Palanca Awards for Literature and the Manila critics Circle National Book Award for the acclaimed graphic novel Siglo: Freedom. He is also a comic book creator, and a marketing and publishing entrepreneur. Salamanca is his first novel.

The book revolves around the lives of its characters- presented in magical realist fiction genre of writing. At first, I was taken aback by the magical and fantastical elements of the novel that I wondered whether I could appreciate it. Yet it was through the course of events in the book that made me realize how effective the workings were in the novel that all the while give the story a realistic touch and an admirable uniqueness among the literary efforts of great contemporary writers. I loved how the book created a world of magic and reality through love in the lives of its many characters.

II. Body

According to Caroline S. Hau in the book’s preface: ” The novel is about the sorcery wrought by love, lust, and literature, by friendship, family and the Filipino nation. Salamanca tracks the stormy relationship between the polymorphous-perverse Gaudencio Rivera, whose passions ignite prodigious feat of writin and wandering, and Palawena beauty Jacinta Cordova, whose perfection transmutes walls into glass and adoration into art. Tracing the arc of an imperfect marriage sundered by acts of nature(not least human) and sutured by acts of will (not least nonhuman), and vividly peopled by a multigenerational and multinational cast of kithand kin, this audacous work of imagination takes the reader on a magical exursion into the Philippine life and history while setting new standards for the Filipino novel along the way.”

This novel reminded me of Laura Esquivel’s “Like Water for Chocolate.” Both novels have similarities through supernatural elements like in the first meeting of Gauencio and Jacinta:

“At the moment their eyes met through the see-through walls of the inconceivable house, Gaudencio dropped the cigarette from his hand as he was devastated by exposure to Jacinta’s luminous beauty….For Jacinta, an invisible bolt of electricity stuck her where she stood, causing her to gasp once before the energy arced from her hands to the cooking pot she carried, causing the clump of string beans that she had been planning to prepare for supper to explode from the intense heat, releasing pods that left contrails as they flew with untoward vigor”(12).

A series of extraordinary events happened during a storm in the latter part of the book stating the lines: “The inhuman storm swept up all four victims of outrageous passion from off their backs or legs, buffeting them in coiling cross currents as they rose off the ground”(26). I just didn’t think that the four victims namely Gaudencio, Jacinta, Mrs. Helen Brown and Ceasar could survive being whirled by the wind.

Prior to all series of unrealistic or rather fantastical event is what had happened to the infamous woman who lives in a house in the island of Tagbaoran in the province of Palawan: “Jacinta Cordova was a firm believer of modesty, and did everything she could to comport herself in a manner that was beyond reproach,especially since the walls of the house she lived in were transparent.She had adjusted as best as she could when her unearthly beauty came into full force on the eve of her twelfth birthday that midnight, she had trembled and closed her eyes as a potent radiance burst from her skin, transforming all the walls inside and outside her house to a material that resembled fine glass”(5).

One significant thing about the novel is the duplication of pages 57-64 and 81-88. I wondered if that was due to publishing errors (because some donated books are defects or discarded) or it had a reason for it being that way. I have settled for the latter because I think those pages contain most of the crucial scenes of the novel.

The flashbacks were wrought well in the book. Without causing confusion, the flashbacks pieced the story together, showing a juxtaposed angle of the separate lives of its characters. The time frame of the story was relevant to the historical facts in the Philippine history and setting. The techniques used by the author continually paces the movement of the story. Cirilo F. Bautista, also a notable writer, stated that the narrative moved at an appropriate psychological pace to give us an interpretation of a slice of Philippine life that is both common and unique. A comment stated by Lawrence L. Ypil says, “In the end, it reminds us ultimately in its expansive scope of the historical retelling and fable making fantasy and ‘reality,’ what good novels, when they work, can do.”

In the third chapter of A Preface to Literary Analysis an important detail was discussed in these statements:

What distinguishes literature from nonliterature is its invented quality…. style is the way a writes, whatever he writes about regardless of its relationship to actual fact. It is however, neither mere mannerism or idiosyncrasy, but the sum of those devices, inherited or newly invented by which language in its various possibilities is employed to bring an implied reader into a hypothetical world, contrived by an empirical author speaking through an artificial voice”(Zitner et al. 33).

These relevant arguments provides an emphasis on the devices that render a styled texture to any work as that which is evident in Salamanca.

III. Conclusion

Salamanca is a novel worth reading. The book made me understand the deeper meaning of the lives of its fictional characters. At first, I thought I wouldn’t finish reading it because a novel is lengthy but then the in reading the first part, I was hooked by the novel.

1. References:

Alfar, Dean Francis. Salamanca. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press,2005.

Zitner, Sheldon et al. A Preface To Literary Analysis. New York: Scott Foresman & Company,1964. 33