Mi Tabula Rasa de las Filipinas or My Tabula Rasa of the Philippines.

Tabula

rasa or blank slate, just like this paper before I wrote the first word or like my mind

before thinking of the first sentence. Things come from nothingness, the same as our

thinking when we were born. We don't have a clue about anything around us, but as we

grow up, we gain knowledge and understanding from experience. Our mind comes from

an empty state, and in every step we take, we develop and rewrite ourselves.

Mi Tabula Rasa de las Filipinas is probably about the blank slate of a person

about the Philippines including its culture, its history, and its people. Being born as a

Filipino but not in the Philippines, I didn't get to know what that country looks like or

what it feels like to live there when I was a child. I always thought that the Philippines

was composed of native people that had a mixture of Spanish and Japanese looks and

language. But, when I got there it was kind of different. They have their language, also

known as Tagalog. I began to learn the language as I continued to stay in that country.

As I develop my knowledge about its language, history, and even the types of

people around me, I started rewriting my baseline knowledge of that country. Through

the years, I continued my exploration of the Philippines. And while exploring, I learned

that there are more types of language other than Tagalog; there are Cebuano,

Pangasinense, Chavacano, Kapampangan, Waray, Ilocano, etc. and there are various

dialects of each of those languages spoken in the Philippines. There are also a vast

number of different cultures in the Philippines and as I go through the process of

learning, my mind which was on an empty state before has come this far where I have

adapted the ways of a Filipino.