Crime Priests

Smaller and smaller circles is about a killer who kills because of a traumatic event happened when he was still still studying. The story shows gore, thank God the book didn't show pictures of how does the rotting body looks like in the first part of the story and how does the victims looks like after the killer scrapes off the face of the victim, removes the organs and genitals and dumps the victim in the payatas dumpsite. This is the reason why I stopped reading the book for a while because of the way the author descibed how the killer kills his victims. Well I can say that the author is succesful in describing each element of the story.

The weird thing about this story is that there are priests acting like investigators. They are Father saenz and Father Jerome. As discussed in our PHILIT class, the reason why the author used priests as investigators is to make the story "COOL". For me the story is not COOL AT ALL! Why?

First, in this story you can foresee what will happen next after a certain event happened.

Second, for me the story didn't show any sign of struggle and thrill as the Crime Priests and SOCOs try to solve the crime.

Third, it seems that the crime investigators and the priests in the story didn't have a hard time to determine who is the killer unlike other stories that they are having a conflict solving the conflict.

Fourth, the story seems like it is trying hard to be as thrilling as the other suspense novels.

Fifth, it is not normal it is normal in the filipino society to have a serial killer.

Lastly, priests solving a crime is not cool at all!

At first I thought that I will like this story because in the first part of the story the conflict of the story was succesfully defined and I as the reader was able to understand how big the problem is for the investigators unfortunately, as the story continues for me, it seems like the author starts to fail in making the readers feel the intensity of the story. The story is good but the way the author presented it for me is not effective.

Sex + Humor + Drama

Derived from the title of the story, Getting Better is like a step-by-step instructional guide for people who discovered their partner cheating. The author of the story is a filipino and a writer in a magazine, so you would expect that the story feels like you are reading a magazine that features a guide on how you will face life after breaking up with the one you love and start to get better! haha! For me, Getting Better is a combination of drama, comedy, suspense, romance and a bit of SEX to spice things up in the story. Though, it shows the western and different side of young adult filipinos, everyone in the class can easily understand and relate to what is happening in the story. Maybe, the PHILIT class enjoys stories that has SEX in it, well it's just my opinion. nyehaaha!

The story is about a woman named karen, the girlfriend of miko that will cheat later on. I think the story took place in an urban area like makati, or manila because of the atmosphere the story suggests. The characters acts like they aren't filipinos at all because most
of the time filipinos are described as conservative and simple persons. The attitude of the characters in the story is the reason why I think the author is quite influenced by western countries. Maybe it is also possible that the author is watching too much sex and violence
that's why the story shows sexual activity between a man and woman and why the story feels like it is very normal in the society to say things about *toot*, *toot* and *toot*.

I like this story, not because of sex, but because of how the author was able to establish a different way of telling a story about a person's recovery after discovering that his partner is cheating on him/her. Also, the story has a bit humor in it to balance things and prevent the story to become serious and boring. The author for me used "sex + humor + drama" as an effective style to keep the readers interested.

The Document

One of the shortest story we read in our PHILIT class is the document. This story is unique! For me... Why? Because the author uses technology like the computer as a way to express his message to his readers. One more reason why this story is so unique is because of it's setting. Everything in the story happened in front of the guy's computer. Most of the time, when I read stories, each event and scenes happens in different places. The story was written in the year 1995 wherein people are still using weird computers because people in that time are not yet interested in computers so they tend to stick to what they still have.

The document is about a guy using his computer and the .doc files saved by a girl who often uses the guy's computer whenever she wishes to use it without asking permission directly to the guy. While the guy is browsing the computer the guy finds the filename of the .doc files, strange that's why the guy started to think that the girl likes him because the filename of the .doc files suggest.

Maybe, the point of the author is that we immediately put meaning about what we see without being able to prove it first. Just like the guy in the story, the guy started to assume that the girl likes him without even making a move to prove what is the true meaning of the strange filenames of .doc files of the girl.

The Great Pretender /ho

Games

Ang istoryang ito ay tungkol sa isang mapagpanggap na babae na madalas tumawag sa isang lalake. Tuwing tatawag ang babae sa lalake ay gumagamit sya ng iba't ibang pangalan, boses at style ng pagsasalita. Ang dahilan ng pagpapanggap ng babae ay dahil sa hindi sya siguro ang tipo ng babaeng magugustuhan ng lalakeng kanyang tinatawagan kaya lagi syang nagpapanggap bilang isang babaeng matitipuhan ng isang lalake.

Kung iisipin natin hindi lamang sa mga babae natin ito maaring, maikumpara. Maari din sa mga lalake, dahil di natin maikakait na minsan ninanais tayong maging, pero kasamaangpalad ay hindi tayo naging ganoon. Para sa akin hindi maganda ang magpanggap, para sa akin napakahirap magpanggap dahil una sa lahat niloloko mo ang mga kapwa mo dahil sa umaasa sila na ganoon ka talaga at pangalawa niloloko mo na din ang sarili mo, dahil sa nabubuhay ka na nagpapanggap at hindi ka na totoo sa sarili mo.

Kung ako yung babae, magpapakatotoo ako. Kung ano talaga ako, yun ako kapag nakita ako ng natitipuhan kong lalake. Tsaka pwede ko naman sigurong akong gumawa ng paraan para magustuhan ako di ba? Bakit magpapanggap ka pa?

Forgotten Love in the Cornhusk

Sometimes people when it comes to love, defines love as a relationship where two hearts should exist, where both of them should be physically in contact with each other so that they could really have love. What I mean is, for most of us, it is so difficult to maitain a long distance relationship, specially if you you will not be communicating a lot. Maybe, today it is more easy to maintain a long distance relationship. Maybe, because of technology, we have telephones where we can our love ones anytime, cellphone where we can send a simple sms to our loved ones and there is the internet wherein there is a lot of communication options we can choose from. But in the story we discussed, there is no telephone, cellphones, etc... the typical, unreliable snail mail is their only option for a long distance communication making long-distance relationship very difficult to maintain.




The story for me is all about forgotten love. The story starts in a typical rural area wherein corns grow. In the first part of the story, Tinang, wife of inggo,the main character of the story, with his son, visits her master to ask if her master would agree to become a ninang of her baby in the its coming baptism. But before tinang leaves her master, she was asked by his master to go to the post office because she has a letter. Tinang went to the post office to pick-up the letter and after that she searched for a place where she can read the letter. She decided to read the letter when she found a place with cornhusks.

The letter she got from the post office is from her first husband, amado. In the letter, Amado told
tinang that his mother is sick, now, unfortunately dead. Also, Amado asked if tinang still has for amado in her heart. Because of this, tinang felt guilty. She felt guilty because she didn't even wait for amado and she regret losing the love started in the cornhusks.

What I can say is that, tinang is weak and impatient. Why weak? Why impatient? She is weak and impatient because of the fact that tinang fell in love with Inggo. I also find the relationship of amado and tinang, a weak one because it took tinang two years to read amado's letter. Which may mean that they aren't communicating a lot. They just let time pass by.