One Two Three Shots

Leaving home to study someplace else can hurt a little, mostly emotional. But I did not expect that it could be very painful, especially on the arm!

Thank the cosmos for reminding my mom it's high time for my annual vaccinations. Two days ago, I got my Influenza shot with my brother at our  (yes, his and still my) pediatrician. I was the first to get shot to give Jommel an impression that it does not hurt. Unfortunately, there was a lot of drama when it was his turn, but that's another story.

No Choice

I watch Ruby as she washes the dishes. Get a dirty plate from the left side, soap it, rinse it and stack on the right. She does it a few more times. Then it's the silverware's turn, which makes a lot of jingling noise. Next, the glassware. She puts them all properly in the rack dry and wipes the rest of the sink and the counter.

I just looked at her, not even daring to start a conversation.

In my mind I think of what my father told me. She is just my age. Like me, she graduated last March from high school. However, she does not plan to go to college. Instead, she would like to work. Slash that. She needed to work.

To My Brother

Back in high school, traveling back to Iloilo means not seeing, feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting (say what?) my beloved family. Well, slash hearing. I can hear them every night whenever my mother calls me at night.

For four years, I got used to this get up. I was away from my comfort zone. I was away from my family, just like my sister. I have been following her foot steps, you see. We both studied in Iloilo and now I will be studying in Manila, just as she did. And boy did I miss her, especially when she only gets to go home from Manila on short vacations. Now that we have a little brother, the bunso (youngest sibling) who actually is bigger than me at the waistline, I wonder if he fills the same way I did when I was his age.

First Day

Today marks a threshold for most of us. Today, my high school batch-mates go from seniors to freshies. Freshies, they will become, in college. It is they who go first because today is the start of their school days in their respective universities. Mine, by the way, will start next week. I still have a little bit of vacation time left.

For four years, we held our heads high as we held the name of Philippine Science High School-Western Visayas higher. Now, we march on the hallways (and the streets) of our new university campuses to meet new friends, teachers and adventures.

To my dear batch-mates, Godspeed everyone!

Alas, I am sentimental right now. But who is to blame? We will begin our lives in college this month, a life that will shape what we will truly become. Someone even told me that I will experience real, hard life as I study in the Diliman campus of the University of the Philippines because it is the very microcosm of the Philippine society. With that and other unsolicited advices, how else can I not be prepared to face my future? Well, who knows?

Book-sale

Our house is a library with volumes of encyclopedias, textbooks, novels and self-help books. It's a wonder why I only started to really fancy books after I graduated from elementary. But when I did, I started my own collection of books, adding to the rising piles at home.

It started with Harry Potter and the Order Of the Phoenix. The fifth installment was sent to me as a birthday present from my parents' friend. I only knew the HP movies back then so my sister told me not to read it. I should start with the first book, The Sorcerer's Stone, though I have seen the movie. So she gave me the first two books, then I bought the next two, all in paperback. When the sixth and seventh installments were released, we bought them hardbound. That's when I really started, not just to read, but to collect books, especially novels.

Of Love

Yesterday, I finished reading Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It has similarities with the movie Love and Other Drugs starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhal. The book must have been its inspiration, but I won't dwell here.

Of Love and Other Demons is about a tragic love story between a rebellious, copper-haired girl, who was raised by her family's slaves, and a bookworm of a priest, who was sent to "fix" her. This happened in the coastal tropics of the South American seaport during the colonial times.

Hello June!

June starts today and the first day of classes is just around the corner. That's right, my school starts 13 days from now and I am totally not prepared for it yet. Well, I think I'm not, my mother says otherwise. Lately, I have been trying avoiding talking about school, college life and living far away from home again. (I studied in Iloilo as a high school student; now I'm off to Manila for my tertiary education.) But alas, it is inevitable with parents and relatives such as mine.

So to keep my mind (and this post) off the said topics, I have decided to share today's comic from xkcd.com.

"haha!" to the caption of today's comic (c) xkcd.com

Fair Trade Fair

I did not let summer end without going to a beach. Just last weekend, I went to Boracay, but vacationing was not at the top of my priorities while in the island.

I was a saling-pusa (tag-along) as my mom, my aunt and a staff from our family business manned our booth in a trade fair in Paradise Garden Resort Hotel and Convention Center, beachfront of Boracay. The Advocate of Philippine Fair Trade, Inc. (APFTI) initiated this trade fair in celebration of the World Fair Trade Day. It is supposedly celebrated on the second week of May, but the event was held last May 28 to 30. It is the first time for both APFTI and Boracay to host an event such as this. And I'm proud to be a part of this milestone for fair traders.

photo (c) apfti.org.ph