On Reads: ASTIGIRL by Tweet Sering

by VESTI

“How does being astray turn into being Astig? Far from the grown up she thought she would be, Tweet Seeing, 30-plus and tormented by a raging discontent with stale notions of how one must live, strips herself of the trappings of adulthood — no job, no savings no insurance and not even a credit card — and resolves to begin growing up again.”

ASTIGIRL - released in 2011 by Palanca award winning author Tweet Sering, the book, by turns sharply funny, intelligent, outspoken, charitable then startlingly censorious, but also pained and bewildered, Sering is unflinching but clean-hearted in her dissection of her life and her loves--her partners, family, friends, the society she lives in, her art— and she risks the pain of scrupulous self-examination for an important prize: self-knowledge.

The insights in these essays, while certainly arrived at with cutting and intense introspection, are offered to the readers in a prose that is light and enthusiastic, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. They remind us of long, late-night chats with our favourite friend, so that the substance of Sering’s go-for-broke account of her journey is not muddled by easy sentiment, but shines with a desire to cheer us into our own journeys of being an Astigirl.

Inspiration on writing ASTIGIRL

That becoming an individual — finding one’s voice” and being true to that — was the ticket to living that life.

I just wanted to know who I am — to see the whole picture or to stand as close to it as possible— so that I could honour it by living according to that knowledge. I just wanted, in other words, to live on my own terms.

On Women’s Month and #ChooseToChallenge as an Astigirl / Filipina with Power

An ASTIGIRL is a female human being who consciously chooses her thoughts, words and actions instead of doing so by default. She questions ideas that keep people from evolving and from being kind to one another, whether she catches these ideas swirling in her own head or out there in the outer world, being expressed by others. She is a truly awakened human being, and the reason I coined this term was because I WANTED to be an ASTIGIRL. I wanted to be a fully alive human being. By simply being her truest, most alive self--kind, compassionate, open-minded, inclusive--she is choosing to challenge everything that isn’t.

*Tweet Sering with her VESTI Astigirl Straw Hat and VESTI Lucy Mini Disco Bag*

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