Branded for life

My birthday-Christmas-New Year's-Valentine's-Easter gift to myself, etched for eternity by Ricky Sta. Ana's Skinworkz studio. I have a feeling this could be the start of a new relationship with my skin (darn it, Miami Ink!).

Now for the geeky part: This reads "malaya" ("free") in baybayin (later known as alibata), the ancient Filipino way of writing. I know the message is a bit corny, but it's an ideal, a truth, that I truly believe in. Anyway, not many people know that there were many variations of baybayin, used by Filipinos before the arrival of the Spaniards, who then successfully erased it from the face of the Earth (well, ha ha, not entirely; a handful of minority groups in the Philippines still use variations of it). So which variation to use? The first character, "ma," I took from the variation used to write "Doctrina Christiana," regarded as the first book ever published in the Philippines, in 1593, used by the Spaniards to Christianize the "indios" (who of course could only read and write in baybayin). The second character, "la," is a modern variation/interpretation circa early 20th century, which I chose over the others for its simplicity. And since I'm a proud Batangueño, the third character, "ya," is the closest I could find to a variation used in the province of Batangas, when it was still called Kumintang, circa late 18th century (I hail from the town of Taal, which used to be called Bonbon, and was the capital of the province).

So it seems that, in spite of the funky tats, I am, in fact, a nerd. I think I should put glasses on them.