writing & drawing by hand

A lasting benefit our Benedictine education (ora et labora) brought wonder | wander | women were penmanship classes. Before that we watched our parents writing longhand - admiring their beautiful handwriting and eagerly awaiting our turn to put thought to paper so beautifully. 

"Bayan Ko" chorus in baybayin by Mahala Urra

Long before studies showed the importance of hand writing and how among other things it engages the whole human being - we were encouraged to write legibly and well. 

Being creative ignited our love for cursive early on. Eventually this art form spread into other calligraphic options. Including writing in our own regional native alphabet, badlit - the Visayan version of the better known baybayin, Philippine script of Luzon islands. 

wonder | wander | women creative collaboration

Baybayin is a pre-Spanish 14th to 18th century writing system used in the Philippines to write Tagalog and other Philippine languages and dialects. Baybayin is an abugida, which combines a consonant and vowel into a single symbol that represents a syllable. The name comes from the Tagalog word baybay, which means "to spell".

home school

At the beginning of lockdown it seemed like everyone was focused on learning something. Banana and sourdough bread, painting classes, new languages... people stuck at home wanted something new to occupy their minds.

Japanese vocabulary with Duolingo

NYC: my corner of the sky

We took three days in New York City as, no matter how easy it is living close by, there's nothing that beats falling asleep and waking up in the city that goes on and on and on. . . .We loved most taking full advantage of some of the best theatres and museums in the world.