TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: Holiday Cheer with Maryknoll Friends in California

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Holiday Cheer with Maryknoll Friends in California

I had lunch recently with Maryknoll College chums, Lucy Adao McGinley and Maria Navarro Ciocon. We were Communication Arts majors at Maryknoll College, Quezon City, and have remained friends since college days. The above pictures shows l-r: Cecilia, Maria, and Lucy.

We share memories of our German Professor, Dr. Wolfgang Harting, who with his wife treated us like their daughters. There also were Doctora Patron and the Communication Arts Ateneo boys who used to "cross the creek" (meaning, they came to our school) to attend classes with us. We girls used to spend so much time fussing with our hair and makeup before those co-ed classes.

Mr. Magsaysay taught us Spanish, and he allowed us, the Communication Arts majors, to skip finals in our senior year, in lieu of our putting on a program in the Lanai. We did poetry reading and Flamenco dancing and got A's. (Our other classmates who had to memorize all those verb forms were somewhat bitter!)

We had a lot of fun in school, and surprisingly, we also learned from those Maryknoll nuns and other fine teachers.

I am hosting a literary soiree later today, and will let you know how that goes.

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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.