Russian friend of mine Mishon who I also work just randomly asked me one day: Hey dude, can you do this? And he was holding a pen with his thumb and pointer finger slightly off-centered in a horizontal position, moving the pen up and down loosely held giving the illusion of a bending pen.
And I said, yeah, and just did it right away, and then I showed him the illusion of a spinning pen holding a pen between your pointer and middle finger. And then I showed him the spinning pen on your thumb. Which for me were things I did since I was kid.

He asked me where did I learn this and when did I learn it. And I cannot even give a good answer, since from where I came from, everyone seemed to know how to do it. I grew up in another country, in the Philippines and went to school there. And I believe I started spinning pens in 4th grade. Why? Because everyone else was doing it. I guess the first person I have seen it was from my cousin Jong Medrano who showed it to me and my sister started doing it to since everyone in school was doing it. I started doing it and many friends of mine were doing it. It was like a natural thing in school. And it was not only from my school, but all across the country.

Mishon was asking further why do we learn it, and I said, I really don’t know. And I said further, it is also the same reason we do book spinning. And he asked how. I just took any book and started spinning it on my finger. For some crazy reason, many people from school was doing this. And I was doing it too, sometimes you see the whole school spinning books and pens and I remember vividly my teacher Ms. Cherry Desiderio (Whom i believe has a new last name already) hated this spinning movements while in class. And if she saw anyone doing some pen spinning or book spinning, she throw away your pen or book. (But she was still one of the cool teachers I had.)

Now that made me wonder, what is it with the Philippines, that many students know pen spinning and book spinning like it is a default talent?