JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Chapters 3 to 5 were translated by the members of our Dickens Translation Group oberstein, chigaune, Akyat-Bahay Gangster, PinoySpag, turmukoy, girlfriday0104, goneflyingakite, cdlaclos, giancarlo, jaime, kotsengkuba, samutsari, jules.

Let’s give our other volunteers till Thursday to submit their pages. Then we can proceed with the next chapters (The new volunteers will also get their assignments). One page per week per person seems to be the practical option.

Volunteers, if you have any suggestions as to how we can make our process more efficient, leave a note in Comments.

* * * * *

The phrase “great expectations” is uttered in connection with the money Pip will receive from his benefactor. The Tagalog title should cover the fortune Pip will come into, so “Marangyang Inaasahan”?

* * * * *

Great Expectations: The Digested Read

Kabanata I

Apelyido ng tatay ko Pirrip, at bininyagan akong Philip. Nung bata, kapag pinagsama ang dalawa, hanggang Pip lang ang kayang maarok ng dila ko, kaya tinawag ko ang sarili kong Pip, at tinawag na rin akong Pip ng iba.

Kinilala kong Pirrip ang apelyido namin, dahil iyon ang nakasulat sa lapida ng tatay ko, at iyon ang sabi ng ate ko—si Gng Joe Gargery, na nakapangasawa ng panday. At palibhasa hindi ko nasilayan si nanay o tatay, ni nakakita ng anumang alaala nila (wala pang picture-picture noon), kung anu man ang iniimadyin kong sila ay walang rasong hinango ko lang sa mga lapida nila. Yaong korte ng mga letra ng sa tatay ko—nagbigay sakin ng ideya na mataba siya, kuwadraduhin ang mukha, kayumanggi ang balat, at kulot at itim ang buhok. Mula sa bilot at karakter ng nakalilok na “At Si Georgina, Asawa ni Philip,” nagkaroon ako ng konklusyong musmos na ang nanay ko ay puros pekas at parating sakitin. At galing sa limang maliliit na batong singhahaba ng isang talampakan at kalahati, na masinop na nakahilera sa gilid ng nitso, itong mga sagradong ala-ala ng limang kapatid ko—silang mga sumuko nang maaga sa pakikibaka ng buhay—utang na loob ko ang lubos na paniniwala na pinanganak lahat silang nakatihaya, nakapamulsa, at di na nakatinag sa ganitong kalagayan.
(more…)

Crocodile, meet shirt. Chris Banks, Melbourne Zoo’s director for international conservation partnerships, introduces a baby crocodile to David Celdran, Philippine endorser of the Lacoste Save Your Logo project.

Unless you are cut off from civilization you have probably heard about biodiversity loss and its impact on the environment. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List reports that 1 in 8 birds, 1 in 4 mammals, and 1 in 3 amphibians are endangered species. An estimated 15 to 37 percent of all species will be extinct in 40 years unless we do something more than rattle off alarming statistics or claim to be environmentalists in order to look cool.

Some species have advantages over others. We’ll donate to campaigns to protect whales and dolphins because they’re cute and in the event of an ocean disaster we imagine they would be our aquatic Leonardo DiCaprios. We’ll buy T-shirts with pictures of lions and stuffed toy tigers because big cats are beautiful, majestic creatures. We’ll visit tarsier reservations because they’re cute, although we really need to weigh the nocturnal beasties’ interests against the entertainment of loud tourists with their blinding flash cameras.

But crocodiles? Not an easy species to love. They’re hideous, they’re scary, and in countless movies we’ve seen them eat people (hence their bad reputation, which is unfair). But if crocodiles cease to exist, the complex balance in wetland ecosystems would be upset. We would lose one of the last survivors of the prehistoric age, a creature that has not changed in the last 100 million years. Crocodiles lived through the rise and extinction of the dinosaurs and the evolution of our own ancestors; it would be terrible if they don’t survive human encroachment into their natural habitats.

Read our column Emotional Weather Report today in the Philippine Star.

Mat adopted us.

“What breed of cat do you have?” I am frequently asked. The long answer is: Cats don’t need to be purebred. Pedigree is redundant in their case because they’re already a super-species, i.e. vicious killing machine in adorable package.

The short answer, delivered proudly, is pusakal or pusang kalye. They came from the street, literally. Animal advocates might call them “rescues”, but in our case there is some dispute over who was the rescuer and who was rescued.

Saffy likes getting into boxes that are too small for her (kitten self-image).

Read our column Emotional Weather Report, Pet Life edition, today in the Philippine Star.

Put Me in the Zoo is a famous children’s book by Robert Lopshire, originally released in 1960 on Dr. Seuss’s publishing imprint. It tells the story of a spotted leopard who can change his spots and their colors, and can even juggle them. He fails to convince two children that he is special enough to be in the zoo, and in the end they tell him where he belongs, and the story ends happily.

Little could Mr. Lopshire have known that his story would one day explain Damien Hirst’s spot paintings to a tee. In fact it could be surmised that Mr. Hirst, below referred to as $pot, was directly inspired by this story.

Put Me In The Zoo: Thinking about Damien Hirst, as a bedtime story. Thanks to BenCab for the alert.

Douglas Booth as Pip in the 2011 BBC adaptation of Great Expectations.

Sometimes the hero of a Dicken’s novel is amongst its least colourful and dynamically interesting characters but Pip is a portrait of real psychological depth and complexity. His slow journey towards self-knowledge is a masterpiece of first person narration, the sound of someone talking to themselves, rather than a writer addressing a reader.

Favourite Dickens Characters in The Telegraph.

Dear Aunt Janey,

Yours truly,
Separada in Heat

Paul Mazursky’s An Unmarried Woman starring Jill Clayburgh is on youtube in its entirety.

Dear Separada in Heat,

Truly Yours,
Auntie Janey