Car Share is cool! You reserve time, you go pick it up, you put the toggle thingy in the window, it opens the car, turn it on and go. Plus how CUTE is it to be going around in a VW bug! And when you get it back, there's a place to park it in.

Got an email from a friend who has a painting up at a student art exhibit at Laney College. What makes this significant is that it's been 7 years since she painted! I'm really happy for her.

She had designed a couple of the maganda magazine covers (issues 8 and 9), but after graduation from Cal well, life got busy with a kid, and work, and all that other stuff that seems to pile up in a day. But she's back to the canvas and I'm sure everything that she has experienced and lived through in those 7 years has really developed her artistry.

Speaking of maganda magazine, the UC Office of the President and the Associated Students Union are awarding it with the "Hardest Working Publication Award." I hope there's cash involved. Back when I was a part of maganda staff, we always felt like the hardest working publications, but that's cuz we were always looking for ways to put out a quality magazine with little to no cash. I suspect as they set to put out number 16, they still wouldn't mind the cash.

But the award is nice too. Good to get some recognition for their work. But more than just being the hardest working publication, they have been one of the few and very likely one of the longest continuously running college literary publications for, by, and about Filipinos. Well before there was Filipinas, there was maganda.

I worked on it when it was still in single digits. And it amazes me, that there continues to be people to step up to the plate and make it happen over and over again. I feel like a proud auntie!

Many of the people who worked on its staff continue to make waves in the art scene. I know of at least a dozen still doing work in the arts and if not the arts other community oriented scenes and if not the community, working in corporate arenas where they leverage funds back to those arts organizations.

What maganda does more than just being a publication, is that it creates a space for people to enter the arts scene and have a hand in its process. Half of the staff were usually off to become doctors and engineers, but maganda let them be artists and support artist's work, so later on when they are the doctors and engineers they remember the importance of art in a person's life. And in this case, brought them a greater awareness of Filipinos as active participants in that art scene. In this way, it builds support for Filipino artists because it builds a base of Filipinos who appreciate the art.

For many college age Filipinos, life in the arts is a foreign destination. Our parents indoctrinated us to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, some nice stable money making profession. So being involved with poetry or painting or other art is not high on the encouragement list. And though Filipinos dot the world art scene,the Filipino community in and of itself doesn't know a whole lot about these people nor their work.

Thus in its 14th year of publication, maganda continues to expose another generation to the arts scene. A place for people to come through the door and acknowledge their own abilities as artists as well as lay the groundwork for a community of people who support the arts. This is key.