A seven-year itch ofwriting Since this year, I am resolved to write 10 pieces ofliterary outputs, quitting on the seventh year when they might be widely shared. The image of the "seven-year itch" comes from amovie where the psychological insight that the passion on anything,particularly in marriage, wanes after the seventh year. This would be a psycho-interest span akin tothe attention span we use in classrooms. Statisticians point out that the current mean time for marital divorceshover at the 7.2 to 7.4 years. While used here as a metaphor, it is also going to be lookedat as a chronological marker. At thestart of 2014, I started the venture of memoir writing, the first being abio-profile draft for my grandchildren in case they wish to know more abouttheir "other grandpa" when they grow older. Though very limited in circulation, I havegotten word of caution about the use of actual names since the"letting-all-hang-out" tone of the narrative does not fit well withthose who wish to keep their privacy away from reach to those who mightconsider possible abuse and harm. However, it gives me a time frame of when I will definitelydesist from laying my fingers on the laptop's keyboard, and say, "I'mdone." To date, there really hadnot been anything "missional" about our wordsmithing. Good friend Jun at BoE once commented thatthe reason Jaime writes the way he does is so that BoE members are encouragedto use their dictionaries more often. That was a good cover for the deficiencies in our syntactical andvocabulary tableaus. It also means,however, that though we think we are serious, we should be taken with a fizz ofseltzer! The Torahhas Ten Commandments, 10 being a convenient number and tool to recall anything,there being (usually) ten digits on one's hands and feet. On my Seven-Year Itch, I aim to write in someformat of writing-made-easy so others can do likewise. My bio-profile got the ball rolling. Here's a targeted list: I 'Sang Pinoy tatakordinaryo j'aime la vie for my grandchildren on my 86 years of existence; II Pinoy sa Puso is on the affairs of the heart and other places, a TY "toall the girls I've known before"; III Pinoy Saipan chronicles life with the United MethodistChurch in Saipan, being part of STaRPO (Saipan, Tinian and Rota ParentOrganization), our writing stint in the Opinion section of the Saipan Tribune and 10-years of lounging withan imaginal beer by Saipan's lagoon; IV Pinoy SVES is a journey through the art &discipline of pedagogical maintenance (no relations to Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance) with PSS and San VicenteElementary School; V Pinoy Chinoy recalls travels to Sichuan, Chung Qing, Manzhouli, Yanji, Lhasa, andUrmuqi, the last place two places still on hold being a foreigner not allowedin those places until the foreign affairs office feels that political stabilityis restored; VI WangZhimu, James V in Zhonghua, is the imaginalJourney on the famed trail of Santiago de Compostela, once a distinct physicalpossibility but now, kept only as a fertile romp in the mind; VII La Liga Ekumenika details my participation in churchrenewal post-Vatican II before the institutions of Christendom kicked thebucket, along with my tepid efforts in the field of human development andspirit life, EI/ICA/O:E version (Ecumenical Institute, Institute of CulturalAffairs, Order:Ecumenical); VIII Pinoy Hemingwei is a personal journey of meaning andoblivion, a womb-to-tomb introspection reminiscent of but not patterned after Ernest's"the old man and the sea"; IX Pinoy englisCHe is oral English pedagogy with CH as"Chinese characteristics" issued as an expanding notebook for anyonewishing to improve their spoken English; and finally, X PinoyJournal collects 366 quotes for 366 days (written on and for a leapyear) with 366 world-wise and street-smart reflections. Obviously,the above list is a projection subject to change in the next seven years. If you can bear with our literary neurosesand idiosyncrasies, it will be fun to journey together. You might consider getting out that tabletand start hacking your own, in words and/or pictures, one-page, one-year at atime. One canbegin this week with how one processes the news of the downed MH17 inUkraine. My first response was, why wasit flying off course, and why do the media keep referring to it being downednear the Russian border when it was clearly downed in Ukraine? One can use this as a practice run ondescribing the facticity of the event, my emotional response to it, thecognitive conclusions my intelligence arrived at, and the decisions I made as aconsequence. I madethis reflection in the eerie atmosphere of flying from Calgary, Canada to Chinaon the weekend via Air Canada and Air China, just as typhoon Rammosun (Glenda in the Philippines)raged in the Philippines and ravaged in unprepared Hainan and Guangdong. Still around to keep writing. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031@aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!