What's Unforgettable in WB-DEV1

As I leave this memorable term, well, I can't find enough ways to thank everyone who made this class possible. One of the subjects that would be very much memorable to me aside from my second-take Desktop Applications Development 2 (DSKDEV2), was another programming subject, the Web Development 1 (WB-DEV1). And the reasons why? Here are those.

What I've learned from the subject
When I first heard of WB-DEV1 from my fellow Benildeans I knew who took this course the previous terms, most of them said that this application development subject would be more of the design and user interface. I got them right. BUT, --- I even emphasize the conjunction but, I have also been told by one of my professors (probably 1 or 2 terms ago) that the flowchart and curricula was already updated. That's why I expected "coding" -- where I was am hard at, but then, I still tried my best to catch up.

At the end of the term, I have learned the three most important things in the subject:

• How to create a webpage using Visual Studio 2010,
• How to create a webpage using Microsoft Expression Blend (latest version) and
• How to integrate programs in a database (specifically, SQL Server).

Honestly, I am having difficulty in terms of coding (especially when executing the .aspx in my quizzes file). That is why I got a grade-of-not-that-high. (I don't know! I'm confused!)

My favorite topic
I consider integrating with the database one of the topics I liked the most. Aside from being familiar with some of the C# codes needed to be integrated to SQL, it also includes the components of the database connected to the C# program as well.

Interesting topics that are nice to have for WB-DEV1
Interesting topics nice to have in WB-DEV1 are some interesting trivias about the World Wide Web, and web development. It's also nice to have a brief introduction about the the Web's use on enterprise resource planning, materials resource planning and supply chain management systems, as well as the other systems potentially used as a proposal in CAPROJ1. I really have no idea how those systems would run using Web applications.

What did you learned as a Benildean?
As a Proud Benildean-Lasallian student, I have learned to be socially responsible by our buddy-buddy system. I have also learned the value of being appreciative in others' worth, for I have proved that no man is REALLY an island; sometimes, we need the help of others especially when times are rough. This value of appreciation also include offering help to others especially when you think you have the capacity to help. Really.

Message for Sir AJ
First of all, I think it would too hard on my part if I won't start this message without the phrase "thank you". Sir AJ, thank you for everything. For your help, support, consideration, advises and words of wisdom. As in, for everything!! I wouldn't have this knowledge and skills without your help. You are indeed a true mentor! I hope for you many many years to come in your professorship. You're indeed considered a good example of a good professional on your chosen field. You rock! May God bless you more!

Animo La Salle! Animo Benilde!

The Powerful Presentation

In order to achieve, at least, respect from others after the presentation, it is very much important to learn the proper ways in presenting in public. We do not need to be exaggerated in our gestures, like what is ordinarily seen in public speaking (without visuals). Of course, public speaking is a skill that must be more enhanced, because without it, we will not look like actual professionals in our chosen careers.


The BCVs present in the said seminar is professional competence, appreciation of individual worth, social responsibility, and of course, creativity.

Professional competence speaks about the way a presenter must do his/her presentation, first of all. As mentioned on the seminar, they, in general, must know their audience well. How do they understand the way they present and how will they learn about the things they want to know. And besides, it showed effective tips on how to create an effective PowerPoint presentation, how to prepare for their topic, and at the same time, be familiar with the content of the topic they will present. They must also enumerate, according to the seminar, effective and practical examples that can be applied to everyday life.

Honestly, social responsibility refers to the way presenters must interact with their audiences. More importantly they must be aware of it because, they create presentations for more understanding not only on the part of the presenters themselves, but also on the part of their prospective audiences as well.

Creativity is considered the “life” of the presentation. If you have created just a simple presentation, having a lecture style of explaining the topic, your audience will most likely to get bored easily. And I have to tell you this: these attitudes of your audience will greatly affect your presentation.

As we all know, to be an effective public speaker/presenter you must ask yourself: 1) Do I know the reason why I am communicating with them? 2) Do I know the background of my audience? And 3) Do I know the most effective way of presenting myself to them? If you answered a big “YES” to all these three, you have known yourself well as a public speaker/presenter and a good communicator as well.

Graphical Communications: So to Speak!

Graphic designs used in communication could be either very much unique or ordinary. The most important thing in using these is the way it delivers the message and how the people interpret it. Because, as we all know, communications must always be a two-way process: there is an action and there is a reaction.

The image above shows that a person must be very flexible, imaginative and knowledgeable in order to have a creative mindset. It is very much essential and important, especially in quick sound and decision-making process.

The Bread of Salt by NVM Gonzalez - 1958

Usually I was in bed by ten and up by five and thus was ready for one more
day of my fourteenth year. Unless Grandmother had forgotten, the fifteen
centavos for the baker down Progreso Street - and how I enjoyed jingling
those coins in my pocket!- would be in the empty fruit jar in the cupboard. I
would remember then that rolls were what Grandmother wanted because
recently she had lost three molars. For young people like my cousins and myself,
she had always said that the kind called pan de sal ought to be quite all right.

The bread of salt! How did it get that name? From where did its flavor come,
through what secret action of flour and yeast? At the risk of being jostled from the
counter by early buyers, I would push my way into the shop so that I might watch
the men who, stripped to the waist, worked their long flat wooden spades in and
out of the glowing maw of the oven. Why did the bread come nut-brown and the
size of my little fist? And why did it have a pair of lips convulsed into a painful
frown? In the half light of the street, and hurrying, the paper bag pressed to my
chest, I felt my curiosity a little gratified by the oven-fresh warmth of the bread I
was proudly bringing home for breakfast.

Well I knew how Grandmother would not mind if I nibbled away at one piece;
perhaps, I might even eat two, to be charged later against my share at the table.
But that would be betraying a trust; and so, indeed, I kept my purchase intact. To
guard it from harm, I watched my steps and avoided the dark street corners.
For my reward, I had only to look in the direction of the sea wall and the fifty
yards or so of riverbed beyond it, where an old Spaniard's house stood. At low
tide, when the bed was dry and the rocks glinted with broken bottles, the stone
fence of the Spaniard's compound set off the house as if it were a castle. Sunrise
brought a wash of silver upon the roofs of the laundry and garden sheds which
had been built low and close to the fence. On dull mornings the light dripped from
the bamboo screen which covered the veranda and hung some four or five yards
from the ground. Unless it was August, when the damp, northeast monsoon had
to be kept away from the rooms, three servants raised the screen promptly at
six-thirty until it was completely hidden under the veranda eaves. From the sound
of the pulleys, I knew it was time to set out for school.

It was in his service, as a coconut plantation overseer, that Grandfather had
spent the last thirty years of his life. Grandmother had been widowed three years
now. I often wondered whether I was being depended upon to spend the years
ahead in the service of this great house. One day I learned that Aida, a
classmate in high school, was the old Spaniard's niece. All my doubts
disappeared. It was as if, before his death, Grandfather had spoken to me about
her, concealing the seriousness of the matter by putting it over as a joke. If now I
kept true to the virtues, she would step out of her bedroom ostensibly to say
Good Morning to her uncle. Her real purpose, I knew, was to reveal thus her
assent to my desire.

On quiet mornings I imagined the patter of her shoes upon the wooden veranda
floor as a further sign, and I would hurry off to school, taking the route she had
fixed for me past the post office, the town plaza and the church, the health center
east of the plaza, and at last the school grounds. I asked myself whether I would
try to walk with her and decided it would be the height of rudeness. Enough that
in her blue skirt and white middy she would be half a block ahead and, from that
distance, perhaps throw a glance in my direction, to bestow upon my heart a
deserved and abundant blessing. I believed it was but right that, in some such
way as this, her mission in my life was disguised.

Her name, I was to learn many years later, was a convenient mnemonic for the
qualities to which argument might aspire. But in those days it was a living voice.
"Oh that you might be worthy of uttering me," it said. And how I endeavored to
build my body so that I might live long to honor her. With every victory at singles
at the handball court the game was then the craze at school -- I could feel my
body glow in the sun as though it had instantly been cast in bronze. I guarded my
mind and did not let my wits go astray. In class I would not allow a lesson to pass
unmastered. Our English teacher could put no question before us that did not
have a ready answer in my head. One day he read Robert Louis Stevenson's
The Sire de Maletroit's Door, and we were so enthralled that our breaths
trembled. I knew then that somewhere, sometime in the not too improbable
future, a benign old man with a lantern in his hand would also detain me in a
secret room, and there daybreak would find me thrilled by the sudden certainty
that I had won Aida's hand.

It was perhaps on my violin that her name wrought such a tender spell. Maestro
Antonino remarked the dexterity of my stubby fingers. Quickly I raced through
Alard-until I had all but committed two thirds of the book to memory. My short,
brown arm learned at last to draw the bow with grace. Sometimes, when
practising my scales in the early evening, I wondered if the sea wind carrying the
straggling notes across the pebbled river did not transform them into Schubert's
"Serenade."

At last Mr. Custodio, who was in charge of our school orchestra, became aware
of my progress. He moved me from second to first violin. During the
Thanksgiving Day program he bade me render a number, complete with pizzicati
and harmonics.

"Another Vallejo! Our own Albert Spalding!" I heard from the front row.

Aida, I thought, would be in the audience. I looked around quickly but could not
see her. As I retired to my place in the orchestra I heard Pete Saez, the
trombone player, call my name.

"You must join my band," he said. "Look, we'll have many engagements soon. It'll
be vacation time."

Pete pressed my arm. He had for some time now been asking me to join the
Minviluz Orchestra, his private band. All I had been able to tell him was that I had
my schoolwork to mind. He was twenty-two. I was perhaps too young to be going
around with him. He earned his school fees and supported his mother hiring out
his band at least three or four times a month. He now said:

"Tomorrow we play at the funeral of a Chinese-four to six in the afternoon; in the
evening, judge Roldan's silver wedding anniversary; Sunday, the municipal
dance."

My head began to whirl. On the stage, in front of us, the principal had begun a
speech about America. Nothing he could say about the Pilgrim Fathers and the
American custom of feasting on turkey seemed interesting. I thought of the
money I would earn. For several days now I had but one wish, to buy a box of
linen stationery. At night when the house was quiet I would fill the sheets with
words that would tell Aida how much I adored her. One of these mornings,
perhaps before school closed for the holidays, I would borrow her algebra book
and there, upon a good pageful of equations, there I would slip my message,
tenderly pressing the leaves of the book. She would perhaps never write back.
Neither by post nor by hand would a reply reach me. But no matter; it would be a
silence full of voices.

That night I dreamed I had returned from a tour of the world's music centers; the
newspapers of Manila had been generous with praise. I saw my picture on the
cover of a magazine. A writer had described how, many years ago, I used to
trudge the streets of Buenavista with my violin in a battered black cardboard
case. In New York, he reported, a millionaire had offered me a Stradivarius violin,
with a card that bore the inscription: "In admiration of a genius your own people
must surely be proud of." I dreamed I spent a weekend at the millionaire's
country house by the Hudson. A young girl in a blue skirt and white middy
clapped her lily-white hands and, her voice trembling, cried "Bravo!"

What people now observed at home was the diligence with which I attended to
my violin lessons. My aunt, who had come from the farm to join her children for
the holidays, brought with her a maidservant, and to the poor girl was given the
chore of taking the money to the baker's for rolls and pan de sal. I realized at
once that it would be no longer becoming on my part to make these morning trips
to the baker's. I could not thank my aunt enough.

I began to chafe on being given other errands. Suspecting my violin to be the
excuse, my aunt remarked:

"What do you want to be a musician for? At parties, musicians always eat last."
Perhaps, I said to myself, she was thinking of a pack of dogs scrambling for
scraps tossed over the fence by some careless kitchen maid. She was the sort
you could depend on to say such vulgar things. For that reason, I thought, she
ought not to be taken seriously at all.

But the remark hurt me. Although Grandmother had counseled me kindly to mind
my work at school, I went again and again to Pete Saez's house for rehearsals.

She had demanded that I deposit with her my earnings; I had felt too weak to
refuse. Secretly, I counted the money and decided not to ask for it until I had
enough with which to buy a brooch. Why this time I wanted to give Aida a brooch,
I didn't know. But I had set my heart on it. I searched the downtown shops. The
Chinese clerks, seeing me so young, were annoyed when I inquired about prices.

At last the Christmas season began. I had not counted on Aida's leaving home,
and remembering that her parents lived in Badajoz, my torment was almost
unbearable. Not once had I tried to tell her of my love. My letters had remained
unwritten, and the algebra book unborrowed. There was still the brooch to find,
but I could not decide on the sort of brooch I really wanted. And the money, in
any case, was in Grandmother's purse, which smelled of "Tiger Balm." I grew
somewhat feverish as our class Christmas program drew near. Finally it came; it
was a warm December afternoon. I decided to leave the room when our English
teacher announced that members of the class might exchange gifts. I felt
fortunate; Pete was at the door, beckoning to me. We walked out to the porch
where, Pete said, he would tell me a secret.

It was about an asalto the next Sunday which the Buenavista Women's Club
wished to give Don Esteban's daughters, Josefina and Alicia, who were arriving
on the morning steamer from Manila. The spinsters were much loved by the
ladies. Years ago, when they were younger, these ladies studied solfeggio with
Josefina and the piano and harp with Alicia. As Pete told me all this, his lips
ash-gray from practising all morning on his trombone, I saw in my mind the
sisters in their silk dresses, shuffling off to church for theevening benediction.
They were very devout, and the Buenavista ladies admired that. I had almost
forgotten that they were twins and, despite their age, often dressed alike. In
low-bosomed voile bodices and white summer hats, I remembered, the pair had
attended Grandfather's funeral, at old Don Esteban's behest. I wondered how
successful they had been in Manila during the past three years in the matter of
finding suitable husbands.

"This party will be a complete surprise," Pete said, looking around the porch as if
to swear me to secrecy. "They've hired our band."

I joined my classmates in the room, greeting everyone with a Merry Christmas
jollier than that of the others. When I saw Aida in one corner unwrapping
something two girls had given her, I found the boldness to greet her also.
"Merry Christmas," I said in English, as a hairbrush and a powder case emerged
from the fancy wrapping. It seemed to me rather apt that such gifts went to her.
Already several girls were gathered around Aida. Their eyes glowed with envy, it
seemed to me, for those fair cheeks and the bobbed dark-brown hair which
lineage had denied them.

I was too dumbstruck by my own meanness to hear exactly what Aida said in
answer to my greeting. But I recovered shortly and asked:

"Will you be away during the vacation?"

"No, I'll be staying here," she said. When she added that her cousins were
arriving and that a big party in their honor was being planned, I remarked:

"So you know all about it?" I felt I had to explain that the party was meant to be a
surprise, an asalto.

And now it would be nothing of the kind, really. The women's club matrons would
hustle about, disguising their scurrying around for cakes and candies as for some
baptismal party or other. In the end, the Rivas sisters would outdo them. Boxes
of meringues, bonbons, ladyfingers, and cinnamon buns that only the Swiss
bakers in Manila could make were perhaps coming on the boat with them. I
imagined a table glimmering with long-stemmed punch glasses; enthroned in that
array would be a huge brick-red bowl of gleaming china with golden flowers
around the brim. The local matrons, however hard they tried, however sincere
their efforts, were bound to fail in their aspiration to rise to the level of Don
Esteban's daughters. Perhaps, I thought, Aida knew all this. And that I should
share in a foreknowledge of the matrons' hopes was a matter beyond love. Aida
and I could laugh together with the gods.

At seven, on the appointed evening, our small band gathered quietly at the gate
of Don Esteban's house, and when the ladies arrived in their heavy shawls and
trim panuelo, twittering with excitement, we were commanded to play the Poet
and Peasant overture. As Pete directed the band, his eyes glowed with pride for
his having been part of the big event. The multicolored lights that the old
Spaniard's gardeners had strung along the vine-covered fence were switched on,
and the women remarked that Don Esteban's daughters might have made some
preparations after all. Pete hid his face from the glare. If the women felt let down,
they did not show it.

The overture shuffled along to its climax while five men in white shirts bore huge
boxes of goods into the house. I recognized one of the bakers in spite of the
uniform. A chorus of confused greetings, and the women trooped into the house;
and before we had settled in the sala to play A Basket of Roses, the heavy
damask curtains at the far end of the room were drawn and a long table richly
spread was revealed under the chandeliers. I remembered that, in our haste to
be on hand for the asalto, Pete and I had discouraged the members of the band
from taking their suppers.
"You've done us a great honor!" Josefina, the more buxom of the twins, greeted
the ladies.

"Oh, but you have not allowed us to take you by surprise!" the ladies demurred in
a chorus.

There were sighs and further protestations amid a rustle of skirts and the glitter of
earrings. I saw Aida in a long, flowing white gown and wearing an arch of
sampaguita flowers on her hair. At her command, two servants brought out a
gleaming harp from the music room. Only the slightest scraping could be heard
because the servants were barefoot. As Aida directed them to place the
instrument near the seats we occupied, my heart leaped to my throat. Soon she
was lost among the guests, and we played The Dance of the Glowworms. I
kept my eyes closed and held for as long as I could her radiant figure before me.

Alicia played on the harp and then, in answer to the deafening applause, she
offered an encore. Josefina sang afterward. Her voice, though a little husky,
fetched enormous sighs. For her encore, she gave The Last Rose of Summer;
and the song brought back snatches of the years gone by. Memories of solfeggio
lessons eddied about us, as if there were rustling leaves scattered all over the
hall. Don Esteban appeared. Earlier, he had greeted the crowd handsomely,
twisting his mustache to hide a natural shyness before talkative women. He
stayed long enough to listen to the harp again, whispering in his rapture:
"Heavenly. Heavenly . . ."

By midnight, the merrymaking lagged. We played while the party gathered
around the great table at the end of the sala. My mind traveled across the seas to
the distant cities I had dreamed about. The sisters sailed among the ladies like
two great white liners amid a fleet of tugboats in a bay. Someone had
thoughtfully remembered-and at last Pete Saez signaled to us to put our
instruments away. We walked in single file across the hall, led by one of the
barefoot servants.

Behind us a couple of hoarse sopranos sang La Paloma to the accompaniment
of the harp, but I did not care to find out who they were. The sight of so much
silver and china confused me. There was more food before us than I had ever
imagined. I searched in my mind for the names of the dishes; but my ignorance
appalled me. I wondered what had happened to the boxes of food that the
Buenavista ladies had sent up earlier. In a silver bowl was something, I
discovered, that appeared like whole egg yolks that had been dipped in honey
and peppermint. The seven of us in the orchestra were all of one mind about the
feast; and so, confident that I was with friends, I allowed my covetousness to
have its sway and not only stuffed my mouth with this and that confection but
also wrapped up a quantity of those egg-yolk things in several sheets of napkin
paper. None of my companions had thought of doing the same, and it was with
some pride that I slipped the packet under my shirt. There, I knew, it would not
bulge.

"Have you eaten?"

I turned around. It was Aida. My bow tie seemed to tighten around my collar. I
mumbled something, I did not know what.

"If you wait a little while till they've gone, I'll wrap up a big package for you," she
added.

I brought a handkerchief to my mouth. I might have honored her solicitude
adequately and even relieved myself of any embarrassment; I could not quite
believe that she had seen me, and yet I was sure that she knew what I had done,
and I felt all ardor for her gone from me entirely.

I walked away to the nearest door, praying that the damask curtains might hide
me in my shame. The door gave on to the veranda, where once my love had trod
on sunbeams. Outside it was dark, and a faint wind was singing in the harbor.

With the napkin balled up in my hand, I flung out my arm to scatter the egg-yolk
things in the dark. I waited for the soft sound of their fall on the garden-shed roof.
Instead, I heard a spatter in the rising night-tide beyond the stone fence. Farther
away glimmered the light from Grandmother's window, calling me home.

But the party broke up at one or thereabouts. We walked away with our
instruments after the matrons were done with their interminable good-byes.
Then, to the tune of Joy to the World, we pulled the Progreso Street
shopkeepers out of their beds. The Chinese merchants were especially
generous. When Pete divided our collection under a street lamp, there was
already a little glow of daybreak.

He walked with me part of the way home. We stopped at the baker's when I told
him that I wanted to buy with my own money some bread to eat on the way to
Grandmother's house at the edge of the sea wall. He laughed, thinking it strange
that I should be hungry. We found ourselves alone at the counter; and we
watched the bakery assistants at work until our bodies grew warm from the oven
across the door. It was not quite five, and the bread was not yet ready.

Women Are Better Seen, Not Heard!

Women are better seen, not heard, as the adage says. The mere fact that there are complex and tabooed issues that are already existent in the early 1940s; it only proved that the women are asking for justice and equality, but sadly, there’s no one listening to them. Aside from the word of mouth, the authors during this time believed that there is no other way to narrate the most sensual and critical, but the most interesting stories about women and children alike, if they didn’t used their literary knowledge.

Based on the text, “The Virgin”, women are described as a powerful weakling. In all fairness, Miss Mijares is a figure of Filipina who is striving hard for her family and relatives, especially herself. But she unknowingly had a little time for love, like she ever wanted back when her mother was alive. Come to think of it, Filipinas that time are very conservative, and lo and behold, but not a girl like her! Miss Mijares is really in a rush to be in love! She even pretends to be kissed by someone where in fact, it is her fingers that touch her lips. In this case, it only shows that Miss Mijares wants someone beside her as she lay down asleep. In short, the text is not fit to be entitled “The Virgin”, because, the main character is already “womanized” in the denouement.

Meanwhile, as I read the text Magnificence, it reminds me of my very best friend who experienced the same as the child’s experience, the only difference is, the time frame. My friend experienced it only a year ago. She’s doing fine; in fact, she is studying hard in school. But since she is lacking (in terms of her social life, meaning, she doesn’t have much friends), she hoped that her efforts will be appreciated and besides, she wants to fulfill her dreams as a writer as well.

It is very obvious that at first, a man whom she had an affair with that time put her on a pedestal. In fact, he offered help when she had her application with me here in Benilde, (obviously, he wants something more in return). It shows that he seems that he really wanted to help, but in the end, it is my friend who suffered the most, after she became aware that the guy is getting hitched with his real girlfriend this coming December.

Going back to the text, the younger child, however, (as an application of the tenets of feminism), is also put on a pedestal. She was given three pencils, and was promised (by Vicente) to be given pencils as he comes back. Besides, he offered to teach her and her brother of what he has learned.

I was also become aware of the word “catharsis”, that very part of the two female characters which they have to let go. The mother of the child had a great influence over these catharses. As a provider and counselor, they did these big roles by adjusting themselves to the level of their child’s.

In the text The Wedding Dance, it’s not fit for Awiyao to wed Madulimay, even if he and his true wife Lumnay cannot bear a son (and that’s specific, huh!). Although in fact, it is an order to have a progeny, especially a son, it already underestimated the capacity of Lumnay. The true wife can bear a son, but not Awiyao. It doesn’t make sense that Awiyao wed another woman if he is aware that he himself cannot bear a child, especially, a son.

Women, women, and more women. There are injustices unveiled with the existence of the literary texts about them like the ones that we have read as we go over our PHILIEN class. There are surely many stories to tell, and we might never know, there would be more women who may experience those injustices, we never can tell! I hope that women like me would overcome these issues and injustices that life would offer, so that no one would ever be harmed in the next generation. As we tackle the literary trends, histories and criticisms and apply it to the literary texts that are included in the syllabi, we hope to have learned the lessons that it share to us.

Magnificence, The Wedding Dance, The Virgin. Three stories that include women. Three stories that include women and the injustices about them. Through literature, we find ways on how to solve the inequality that life can bring!

The Benildanze Moments!

Whew. What a day. 14th day of December. That is, the new moment I shall never forget…

Actually, at that day, I didn’t even showed up on my class until DYNAREL. I was too busy to attend at that time because I am finishing the MovieMaker that was assigned to be by the Boss. (Who could that be? Hmmm… Let me think.)

I am very disappointed to know that I am not yet paid on my debt to Akie. In fact, I didn’t even talked to her. (That means, kung nakausap ko man siya, well… yun ay dahil kinukulit na nya ako. That’s it.)

The bell rang as I went to our classroom. It was already our COMSK2X, the third period. I was so shocked to discover that Hervie, my partner (in the proposal), has been gone for already two periods! Kaya ayun, wala na akong choice but to continue the proposal by myself.

It so happened that while I was eating my lunch (ooohh…. yummy!) at the CSB caf (shortened for Cafeteria), Akie’s friend She and Evan approached me. They also, even asked me when would I pay her. I told them after the 15th. (Oh, I hope so! I don’t even know when would my Mom get her allowance. I don’t want for my Dad to pay for this, because, I don’t think he is interested. And besides, kung hindi ako nakapagbayad that time, kukulitin na naman nila ako until now!)

Exasperated, I went to the ComLab 6. I stayed there for almost two hours. Two hours — yun pala, nakalimot ako na meron palang practice ng 11:30 sa classroom! Thanks to Oti — kung hindi dahil sa kanya di ko namalayang wala pala akong costume na dala.

I went up to the Mutien Marie Building fifth floor, and I saw them already done with the practice. After a while, pinauwi na nila ako when they knew that I intentionally left the house without bringing some of the costumes itself. I am wondering, “Why did Karen told me that I have to pay them P100 for the leggings though they told me before that I am not? Ang alam ko lang na babayaran ko ay ang P90 na utang ko kay Akie. Naguguluhan tuloy ako!”

Ah basta, P90 lang ang babayaran ko! Ang susundin ko ay yung usapan nung nakaraan. Ang gulo kasi eh! I don’t want to increase my debt. Hindi lang si Akie ang inutangan ko. Pati na si Alstr.

Sobrang nahihiya na ako eh. Tama na. Ano na lang ang sasabihin nila sa akin? Na wala akong isang salita? Na hindi ako sumusunod sa usapan? Di ba? Hindi yata ako makakapayag!!!!!

Back to the house at Sta. Ana, nag-change outfit na rin ako. Sobrang naiinitan ako sa suot kong long sleeves na turtle-neck pa!! Kainis!

After an hour, I am already at Benilde. I saw Cha (nice Cha!) with his “dabarkads” eating at the Caf. He was the one who tell me where the others went. When I found them, we went to the Plaza V immediately. Kami na lang pala ang wala pa sa assigned cottage namin.

Umalis ako sandali sa cottage after makapag-ayos ng kaunti. Nag-make up, then bumaba sa CR sa basement. Kinuha ko yung sorpresa ko.

Pag-akyat ko, ako ang na-shocked (imbis na sila) kasi nakita ni Miss Lucy (yung prof namin sa PETWODA) ang new look ko. Hohohoho.

After several hours of waiting, the Benildanze starts. Naabutan pa namin yung Angelus kaya tumigil pa kami for a few moments.

We were the last to present that night. Nakakuha kami ng suporta sa profs naming sina Miss Malou (COMSK2X), at Sir Albert (MANALOG). In fact, kay Sir Albert marami kaming kuha. Pati video (ia-upload ko next time) ng sayaw namin ipapakita ko sa inyo!!!

Although in fact, we lost the competition, na-enjoy kami. Hindi nasayang ang pinaghirapan namin. Ang sabi nga sa’min ni Sophie eh, “I-expect nyo nang matatalo na tayo…” At yun nga. At least, we exerted our efforts and we did our job well done.

We still celebrated for that. Kasama ko sina Sophie (of course), Oti, Daphne, Calvin, Jo, and Brye. Although nandun din sina Kha (Karen for short), Alvin at Kenneth, hiwalay sila ng table sa’min. Grabe nakakaawa talaga ako that time. Ang na-order ko lang ay ang Vanilla Sundae. I was so shocked when Brye gave me a P50-bill and said, “Bumili ka ng Coke Float at Burger, dali!” Ohhh… grabe nakakatuwa talaga!!!! I didn’t expect it. Thanks Brye!! Thanks sa lahat ng nakasama ko kagabi!! Love y’all!!

Well so far, after I got home, I dressed up and went to bed and slept. I’m very very tired.

Zzzzzz……

November 28th: Trip to Cavite

I really don’t know if it is right. At that point of time kasi, I was so confused if I was about to join in the pilgrimage or not.

I think it doesn’t seem right, because, my faith is very far different from those of my classmates. Because I accept the fact that I am studying in a private Catholic school, and the mentors are assuring a great experience to all of us in Benilde, so I choose to go with them.

It so happened that when it came a time that we were about to pay a P675-cost field trip (it is not a pilgrimage. for me, it’s a field trip, you know??), I realized that I decided to go with them at Cavite “for the sake of going with them”. I just want to travel places which I didn’t see before.

In fairness naman, ang lalaki ng mga churches na napuntahan namin. All of them have a cross-like area (if viewed from above). Ang ikinaiinis ko nga lang, may mga kung anu-ano pang mga kalokohan. Yun lang talaga ang nakasira ng concentration ko sa paglalaboy. Promise.

The church I really liked the most is the Pink Sisters (Adoration) in Tagaytay. It is indeed a quiet place we may call a “contemplating place”. The Pink Sisters singing there really reminds me of the brethren all around the globe who were members of the choir. They really have a wonderful voice. But, I am also having pity on them. Biruin mo, ang sipag nilang mag-pray. Talo pa yung ilang mga kapatid who intend to neglect their duties and responsibilities in the True Church. I am sad about the efforts the sisters have made since they came inside the convent. Nalulungkot lang talaga ako. I really do hope that God will enlighten their minds and souls. I can’t take it that no matter how hard they try, all their efforts will surely be rejected by the One.

Meanwhile, when we are inside the bus, I am so shocked that I was made fun by some (like JC). I’ll show you this video.


As you can see, the flag that was near me (in the video) was found in the sidewalk by one of us in CF1A while we are on our way to the bus. We came from the Silang Church, the second of the five churches we have visited. Brian, a classmate of mine, asked us what flag it is. Being familiar with the design, color and the overall appearance of the flag, I answered, “Pwede bang akin na lang?? Flag kasi namin yan eh.” So, he gave it to me. I brought that flag when I went home.

The Virgin (by Kerima Polotan-Tuvera)

He went to where Miss Mijares sat, a tall, big man, walking with an economy of movement, graceful and light, a man who knew his body and used it well. He sat in the low chair worn decrepit by countless other interviewers and laid all ten fingerprints carefully on the edge of her desk. She pushed a sheet towards him, rolling a pencil along with it. While he read the question and wrote down his answers, she glanced at her watch and saw that it was ten. "I shall be coming back quickly," she said, speaking distinctly in the dialect (you were never sure about these people on their first visit, if they could speak English, or even write at all, the poor were always proud and to use the dialect with them was an act of charity), "you will wait for me."

As she walked to the cafeteria, Miss Mijares thought how she could easily have said, Please wait for me, or will you wait for me? But years of working for the placement section had dulled the edges of her instinct for courtesy. She spoke now peremptorily, with an abruptness she knew annoyed the people about her.

When she talked with the jobless across her desk, asking them the damning questions that completed their humiliation, watching pale tongues run over dry lips, dirt crusted handkerchiefs flutter in trembling hands, she was filled with an impatience she could not understand. Sign here, she had said thousands of times, pushing the familiar form across, her finger held to a line, feeling the impatience grow at sight of the man or woman tracing a wavering "X" or laying the impress of a thumb. Invariably, Miss Mijares would turn away to touch the delicate edge of the handkerchief she wore on her breast.

Where she sat alone at one of the cafeteria tables, Miss Mijares did not look 34. She was slight, almost bony, but she had learned early how to dress herself to achieve an illusion of hips and bosom. She liked poufs and shirrings and little girlish pastel colors. On her bodice, astride or lengthwise, there sat an inevitable row of thick camouflaging ruffles that made her look almost as though she had a bosom, if she bent her shoulders slightly and inconspicuously drew her neckline open to puff some air into her bodice.

Her brow was smooth and clear and she was always pushing off it the hair she kept in tight curls at night. She had thin cheeks, small and angular, falling down to what would have been a nondescript, receding chin, but Nature's hand had erred and given her a jaw instead. When displeased, she had a lippy, almost sensual pout, surprising on such a small face.

So while not exactly an ugly woman, she was no beauty. She teetered precariously on the border line to which belonged countless others who you found, if they were not working at some job, in the kitchen of some married sister's house shushing a brood of devilish little nephews.

And yet Miss Mijares did think of love. Secret, short-lived thoughts flitted through her mind in the jeepneys she took to work when a man pressed down beside her and through her dress she felt the curve of his thigh; when she held a baby in her arms, a married friend's baby or a relative's, holding in her hands the tiny, pulsing body, what thoughts did she not think, her eyes straying against her will to the bedroom door and then to her friend's laughing, talking face, to think: how did it look now, spread upon a pillow, unmasked of the little wayward coquetries, how went the lines about the mouth and beneath the eyes: (did they close? did they open?) in the one final, fatal coquetry of all? to finally, miserably bury her face in the baby's hair. And in the movies, to sink into a seat as into an embrace, in the darkness with a hundred shadowy figures about her and high on the screen, a man kissing a woman's mouth while her own fingers stole unconsciously to her unbruised lips.

When she was younger, there had been other things to do--- college to finish, a niece to put through school, a mother to care for.

She had gone through all these with singular patience, for it had seemed to her that love stood behind her, biding her time, a quiet hand upon her shoulder (I wait. Do not despair) so that if she wished she had but to turn from her mother's bed to see the man and all her timid, pure dreams would burst into glory. But it had taken her parent many years to die. Towards the end, it had become a thankless chore, kneading her mother's loose flesh, hour after hour, struggling to awaken the cold, sluggish blood in her drying body. In the end, she had died --- her toothless, thin-haired, flabby-fleshed mother --- and Miss Mijares had pushed against the bed in grief and also in gratitude. But neither love nor glory stood behind her, only the empty shadows, and nine years gone, nine years. In the room for her unburied dead, she had held up her hands to the light, noting the thick, durable fingers, thinking in a mixture of shame and bitterness and guilt that they had never touched a man.

When she returned to the bleak replacement office, the man stood by a window, his back to her, half-bending over something he held in his hands. "Here," she said, approaching, "have you signed this?"

"Yes," he replied, facing her.

In his hands, he held her paperweight, an old gift from long ago, a heavy wooden block on which stood, as though poised for flight, an undistinguished, badly done bird. It had come apart recently. The screws beneath the block had loosened so that lately it had stood upon her desk with one wing tilted unevenly, a miniature eagle or swallow? felled by time before it could spread its wings. She had laughed and laughed that day it had fallen on her desk, plop! "What happened? What happened?" they had asked her, beginning to laugh, and she had said, caught between amusement and sharp despair, "Some one shot it," and she had laughed and laughed till faces turned and eyebrows rose and she told herself, whoa, get a hold, a hold, a hold!

He had turned it and with a penknife tightened the screws and dusted it. In this man's hands, cupped like that, it looked suddenly like a dove.

She took it away from him and put it down on her table. Then she picked up his paper and read it.

He was a high school graduate. He was also a carpenter.

He was not starved, like the rest. His clothes though old, were pressed and she could see the cuffs of his shirt buttoned and wrapped about big, strong wrists.

"I heard about this place," he said, "from a friend you got a job at the pier." Seated, he towered over her, "I'm not starving yet," he said with a quick smile. "I still got some money from that last job, but my team broke up after that and you got too many jobs if you're working alone. You know carpentering," he continued, "you can't finish a job quickly enough if you got to do the planning and sawing and nailing all by your lone self. You got to be on a team."

Perhaps he was not meaning to be impolite? But for a jobseeker, Miss Mijares thought, he talked too much and without call. He was bursting all over with an obtruding insolence that at once disarmed and annoyed her.

So then she drew a slip and wrote his name on it. "Since you are not starving yet," she said, speaking in English now, wanting to put him in his place, "you will not mind working in our woodcraft section, three times a week at two-fifty to four a day, depending on your skill and the foreman's discretion, for two or three months after which there might be a call from outside we may hold for you."

"Thank you," he said.

He came on the odd days, Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday.

She was often down at the shanty that housed their bureau's woodcraft, talking with Ato, his foreman, going over with him the list of old hands due for release. They hired their men on a rotation basis and three months was the longest one could stay.

"The new one there, hey," Ato said once. "We're breaking him in proper." And he looked across several shirted backs to where he stopped, planning what was to become the side of a bookcase.

How much was he going to get? Miss Mijares asked Ato on Wednesday. "Three," the old man said, chewing away on a cud. She looked at the list in her hands, quickly running a pencil down. "But he's filling a four-peso vacancy," she said. "Come now," surprised that she should wheedle so, "give him the extra peso." "Only a half," the stubborn foreman shook his head, "three-fifty."

"Ato says I have you to thank," he said, stopping Miss Mijares along a pathway in the compound.

It was noon, that unhappy hour of the day when she was oldest, tiredest, when it seemed the sun put forth cruel fingers to search out the signs of age on her thin, pinched face. The crow's feet showed unmistakably beneath her eyes and she smiled widely to cover them up and acquitting a little, said, "Only a half-peso --- Ato would have given it to you eventually."

"Yes, but you spoke for me," he said, his big body heaving before her. "Thank you, though I don't need it as badly as the rest, for to look at me, you would knew I have no wife --- yet."

She looked at him sharply, feeling the malice in his voice. "I'd do it for any one," she said and turned away, angry and also ashamed, as though he had found out suddenly that the ruffles on her dress rested on a flat chest.
The following week, something happened to her: she lost her way home.

Miss Mijares was quite sure she had boarded the right jeepneys but the driver, hoping to beat traffic, had detoured down a side alley, and then seeing he was low on gas, he took still another shortcut to a filling station. After that, he rode through alien country.

The houses were low and dark, the people shadowy, and even the driver, who earlier had been an amiable, talkative fellow, now loomed like a sinister stranger over the wheel. Through it all, she sat tightly, feeling oddly that she had dreamed of this, that some night not very long ago, she had taken a ride in her sleep and lost her way. Again and again, in that dream, she had changed direction, losing her way each time, for something huge and bewildering stood blocking the old, familiar road home.

But that evening, she was lost only for a while. The driver stopped at a corner that looked like a little known part of the boulevard she passed each day and she alighted and stood on a street island, the passing headlights playing on her, a tired, shaken woman, the ruffles on her skirt crumpled, the hemline of her skirt awry.

The new hand was absent for a week. Miss Mijares waited on that Tuesday he first failed to report for some word from him sent to Ato and then to her. That was regulation. Briefly though they were held, the bureau jobs were not ones to take chances with. When a man was absent and he sent no word, it upset the system. In the absence of a definite notice, someone else who needed a job badly was kept away from it.

"I went to the province, ma'am," he said, on his return.

"You could have sent someone to tell us," she said.

"It was an emergency, ma'am," he said. "My son died."

"How so?"

A slow bitter anger began to form inside her. "But you said you were not married!"

"No, ma'am," he said gesturing.

"Are you married?" she asked loudly.

"No, ma'am."

"But you have -- you had a son!" she said.

"I am not married to his mother," he said, grinning stupidly, and for the first time she noticed his two front teeth were set widely apart. A flush had climbed to his face, suffusing it, and two large throbbing veins crawled along his temples.
She looked away, sick all at once.

"You should told us everything," she said and she put forth hands to restrain her anger but it slipped away she stood shaking despite herself.

"I did not think," he said.

"Your lives are our business here," she shouted.

It rained that afternoon in one of the city's fierce, unexpected thunder-storms. Without warning, it seemed to shine outside Miss Mijares' window a gray, unhappy look.

It was past six when Miss Mijares, ventured outside the office. Night had come swiftly and from the dark sky the thick, black, rainy curtain continued to fall. She stood on the curb, telling herself she must not lose her way tonight. When she flagged a jeepney and got in, somebody jumped in after her. She looked up into the carpenter's faintly smiling eyes. She nodded her head once in recognition and then turned away.

The cold tight fear of the old dream was upon her. Before she had time to think, the driver had swerved his vehicle and swung into a side street. Perhaps it was a different alley this time. But it wound itself in the same tortuous manner as before, now by the banks of overflowing esteros, again behind faintly familiar buildings. She bent her tiny, distraught face, conjuring in her heart the lonely safety of the street island she had stood on for an hour that night of her confusion.

"Only this far, folks," the driver spoke, stopping his vehicle. "Main street's a block straight ahead."

"But it's raining," someone protested.
"Sorry. But if I got into a traffic, I won't come out of it in a year. Sorry."
One by one the passengers got off, walking swiftly, disappearing in the night.

Miss Mijares stepped down to a sidewalk in front of a boarded store. The wind had begun again and she could hear it whipping in the eaves above her head. "Ma'am," the man's voice sounded at her shoulders, "I am sorry if you thought I lied."

She gestured, bestowing pardon.

Up and down the empty, rain-beaten street she looked. It was as though all at once everyone else had died and they were alone in the world, in the dark.

In her secret heart, Miss Mijares' young dreams fluttered faintly to life, seeming monstrous in the rain, near this man --- seeming monstrous but sweet overwhelming. I must get away, she thought wildly, but he had moved and brushed against her, and where his touch had fallen, her flesh leaped, and she recalled how his hands had looked that first day, lain tenderly on the edge of her desk and about the wooden bird (that had looked like a moving, shining dove) and she turned to him with her ruffles wet and wilted, in the dark she turned to him.

Dead Stars (by Paz Marquez-Benitez)

THROUGH the open window the air-steeped outdoors passed into his room, quietly enveloping him, stealing into his very thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he had made of life, the years to come even now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they lost concreteness, diffused into formless melancholy. The tranquil murmur of conversation issued from the brick-tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen were busy puttering away among the rose pots.




"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"



"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific, but I understand Esperanza wants it to be next month."



Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty, is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza must be tired waiting."



"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry either," Don Julian nasally commented, while his rose scissors busily snipped away.



"How can a woman be in a hurry when the man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned, pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat absent air. "Papa, do you remember how much in love he was?"



"In love? With whom?"



"With Esperanza, of course. He has not had another love affair that I know of," she said with good-natured contempt. "What I mean is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--flowers, serenades, notes, and things like that--"



Alfredo remembered that period with a wonder not unmixed with shame. That was less than four years ago. He could not understand those months of a great hunger that was not of the body nor yet of the mind, a craving that had seized on him one quiet night when the moon was abroad and under the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza, man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or was the love that others told about a mere fabrication of perfervid imagination, an exaggeration of the commonplace, a glorification of insipid monotonies such as made up his love life? Was love a combination of circumstances, or sheer native capacity of soul? In those days love was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love, as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he divined it might be.



Sitting quietly in his room now, he could almost revive the restlessness of those days, the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he knew so well in his boyhood when something beautiful was going on somewhere and he was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry, hurry, or you will miss it," someone had seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly seized on the shadow of Love and deluded himself for a long while in the way of humanity from time immemorial. In the meantime, he became very much engaged to Esperanza.



Why would men so mismanage their lives? Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many. Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men commit themselves when but half-meaning to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness of ecstasy to the craving for immediate excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.



"What do you think happened?" asked Carmen, pursuing her thought.



"I supposed long-engaged people are like that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they are oftener cool than warm. The very fact that an engagement has been allowed to prolong itself argues a certain placidity of temperament--or of affection--on the part of either, or both." Don Julian loved to philosophize. He was talking now with an evident relish in words, his resonant, very nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch. "That phase you were speaking of is natural enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping youth--"



Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her brother's perfect physical repose--almost indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by her father's figurative language.



"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old man.



Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar with hot blood. Even his friends had amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and slender, he moved with an indolent ease that verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo Salazar's appearance betokened little of exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen, clear brain.



He rose and quietly went out of the house. He lingered a moment on the stone steps; then went down the path shaded by immature acacias, through the little tarred gate which he left swinging back and forth, now opening, now closing, on the gravel road bordered along the farther side by madre cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.



The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to the house on the hill, whose wide, open porches he could glimpse through the heat-shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.



Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to him save that it was the Martinez house, rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant nothing to him; he did not even know her name; but now--



One evening he had gone "neighboring" with Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since he made it a point to avoid all appearance of currying favor with the Judge. This particular evening however, he had allowed himself to be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now and then is beneficial," the old man had said. "Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed through a shrug and a smile that derided his own worldly wisdom.



A young woman had met them at the door. It was evident from the excitement of the Judge's children that she was a recent and very welcome arrival. In the characteristic Filipino way formal introductions had been omitted--the judge limiting himself to a casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del Valle throughout the evening.



He was puzzled that she should smile with evident delight every time he addressed her thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she was not the Judge's sister, as he had supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather austere name, he thought. Still, the young lady should have corrected him. As it was, he was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he should explain.



To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing, Each time I was about to correct you, but I remembered a similar experience I had once before."



"Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.



"A man named Manalang--I kept calling him Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young man rose from his seat and said suddenly, 'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang, Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!"



He laughed with her.



"The best thing to do under the circumstances, I have found out," she pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let the other person find out his mistake without help."



"As you did this time. Still, you looked amused every time I--"



"I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."



Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend, the Judge, were absorbed in a game of chess. The young man had tired of playing appreciative spectator and desultory conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch. The lone piano in the neighborhood alternately tinkled and banged away as the player's moods altered. He listened, and wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could sing; she had such a charming speaking voice.



He was mildly surprised to note from her appearance that she was unmistakably a sister of the Judge's wife, although Doña Adela was of a different type altogether. She was small and plump, with wide brown eyes, clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately modeled hips--a pretty woman with the complexion of a baby and the expression of a likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips, but she was much darker, of a smooth rich brown with underlying tones of crimson which heightened the impression she gave of abounding vitality.



On Sunday mornings after mass, father and son would go crunching up the gravel road to the house on the hill. The Judge's wife invariably offered them beer, which Don Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a half hour or so, the chessboard would be brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in the low hammock and he in a rocking chair and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it was evident that she liked his company; yet what feeling there was between them was so undisturbed that it seemed a matter of course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask him indirectly about those visits did some uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl next door.



Esperanza had wanted to know if he went straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly realized that for several Sundays now he had not waited for Esperanza to come out of the church as he had been wont to do. He had been eager to go "neighboring."



He answered that he went home to work. And, because he was not habitually untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa to Judge del Valle's."



She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies. She was a believer in the regenerative virtue of institutions, in their power to regulate feeling as well as conduct. If a man were married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if he were engaged, he could not possibly love another woman.



That half-lie told him what he had not admitted openly to himself, that he was giving Julia Salas something which he was not free to give. He realized that; yet something that would not be denied beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.



It was so easy to forget up there, away from the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he standing close to her, the shadows around, enfolding.



"Up here I find--something--"



He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity, laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"



"No; youth--its spirit--"



"Are you so old?"



"And heart's desire."



Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet lurking in the heart of every man?



"Down there," he had continued, his voice somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad, too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."



"Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an errant breeze strayed in from somewhere, bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices in a dream.



"Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so brief--"



"Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."



"You have known me a few weeks; so the mystery."



"I could study you all my life and still not find it."



"So long?"



"I should like to."



Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming in the memory, yet had they been so deep in the living, so charged with compelling power and sweetness. Because neither the past nor the future had relevance or meaning, he lived only the present, day by day, lived it intensely, with such a willful shutting out of fact as astounded him in his calmer moments.



Just before Holy Week, Don Julian invited the judge and his family to spend Sunday afternoon at Tanda where he had a coconut plantation and a house on the beach. Carmen also came with her four energetic children. She and Doña Adela spent most of the time indoors directing the preparation of the merienda and discussing the likeable absurdities of their husbands--how Carmen's Vicente was so absorbed in his farms that he would not even take time off to accompany her on this visit to her father; how Doña Adela's Dionisio was the most absentminded of men, sometimes going out without his collar, or with unmatched socks.



After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off with the judge to show him what a thriving young coconut looked like--"plenty of leaves, close set, rich green"--while the children, convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending entertainment in the rippling sand left by the ebbing tide. They were far down, walking at the edge of the water, indistinctly outlined against the gray of the out-curving beach.



Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder of the house and followed. Here were her footsteps, narrow, arched. He laughed at himself for his black canvas footwear which he removed forthwith and tossed high up on dry sand.



When he came up, she flushed, then smiled with frank pleasure.



"I hope you are enjoying this," he said with a questioning inflection.



"Very much. It looks like home to me, except that we do not have such a lovely beach."



There was a breeze from the water. It blew the hair away from her forehead, and whipped the tucked-up skirt around her straight, slender figure. In the picture was something of eager freedom as of wings poised in flight. The girl had grace, distinction. Her face was not notably pretty; yet she had a tantalizing charm, all the more compelling because it was an inner quality, an achievement of the spirit. The lure was there, of naturalness, of an alert vitality of mind and body, of a thoughtful, sunny temper, and of a piquant perverseness which is sauce to charm.



"The afternoon has seemed very short, hasn't it?" Then, "This, I think, is the last time--we can visit."



"The last? Why?"



"Oh, you will be too busy perhaps."



He noted an evasive quality in the answer.



"Do I seem especially industrious to you?"



"If you are, you never look it."



"Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man ought to be."



"But--"



"Always unhurried, too unhurried, and calm." She smiled to herself.



"I wish that were true," he said after a meditative pause.



She waited.



"A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm and placid."



"Like a carabao in a mud pool," she retorted perversely



"Who? I?"



"Oh, no!"



"You said I am calm and placid."



"That is what I think."



"I used to think so too. Shows how little we know ourselves."



It was strange to him that he could be wooing thus: with tone and look and covert phrase.



"I should like to see your home town."



"There is nothing to see--little crooked streets, bunut roofs with ferns growing on them, and sometimes squashes."



That was the background. It made her seem less detached, less unrelated, yet withal more distant, as if that background claimed her and excluded him.



"Nothing? There is you."



"Oh, me? But I am here."



"I will not go, of course, until you are there."



"Will you come? You will find it dull. There isn't even one American there!"



"Well--Americans are rather essential to my entertainment."



She laughed.



"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with trees."



"Could I find that?"



"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she smiled teasingly.



"I'll inquire about--"



"What?"



"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."



"There is where you will lose your way." Then she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite sincere."



"It is," he averred slowly, but emphatically.



"I thought you, at least, would not say such things."



"Pretty--pretty--a foolish word! But there is none other more handy I did not mean that quite--"



"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"



"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty when it pleases the eye--it is more than that when--"



"If it saddens?" she interrupted hastily.



"Exactly."



"It must be ugly."



"Always?"



Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer of crimsoned gold.



"No, of course you are right."



"Why did you say this is the last time?" he asked quietly as they turned back.



"I am going home."



The end of an impossible dream!



"When?" after a long silence.



"Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father and Mother yesterday. They want me to spend Holy Week at home."



She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. "That is why I said this is the last time."



"Can't I come to say good-bye?"



"Oh, you don't need to!"



"No, but I want to."



"There is no time."



The golden streamer was withdrawing, shortening, until it looked no more than a pool far away at the rim of the world. Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the senses as does solemn harmony; a peace that is not contentment but a cessation of tumult when all violence of feeling tones down to the wistful serenity of regret. She turned and looked into his face, in her dark eyes a ghost of sunset sadness.



"Home seems so far from here. This is almost like another life."



"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange enough, I cannot get rid of the old things."



"Old things?"



"Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old baggage." He said it lightly, unwilling to mar the hour. He walked close, his hand sometimes touching hers for one whirling second.



Don Julian's nasal summons came to them on the wind.



Alfredo gripped the soft hand so near his own. At his touch, the girl turned her face away, but he heard her voice say very low, "Good-bye."







II



ALFREDO Salazar turned to the right where, farther on, the road broadened and entered the heart of the town--heart of Chinese stores sheltered under low-hung roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor shops, of dingy shoe-repairing establishments, and a cluttered goldsmith's cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a magnifying lens; heart of old brick-roofed houses with quaint hand-and-ball knockers on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza reposeful with trees, of ancient church and convento, now circled by swallows gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the afternoon itself. Into the quickly deepening twilight, the voice of the biggest of the church bells kept ringing its insistent summons. Flocking came the devout with their long wax candles, young women in vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and the Lord was still alive), older women in sober black skirts. Came too the young men in droves, elbowing each other under the talisay tree near the church door. The gaily decked rice-paper lanterns were again on display while from the windows of the older houses hung colored glass globes, heirlooms from a day when grasspith wicks floating in coconut oil were the chief lighting device.



Soon a double row of lights emerged from the church and uncoiled down the length of the street like a huge jewelled band studded with glittering clusters where the saints' platforms were. Above the measured music rose the untutored voices of the choir, steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of burning wax.



The sight of Esperanza and her mother sedately pacing behind Our Lady of Sorrows suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity and broke up those lines of light into component individuals. Esperanza stiffened self-consciously, tried to look unaware, and could not.



The line moved on.



Suddenly, Alfredo's slow blood began to beat violently, irregularly. A girl was coming down the line--a girl that was striking, and vividly alive, the woman that could cause violent commotion in his heart, yet had no place in the completed ordering of his life.



Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him and came to a brief stop.



The line kept moving on, wending its circuitous route away from the church and then back again, where, according to the old proverb, all processions end.



At last Our Lady of Sorrows entered the church, and with her the priest and the choir, whose voices now echoed from the arched ceiling. The bells rang the close of the procession.



A round orange moon, "huge as a winnowing basket," rose lazily into a clear sky, whitening the iron roofs and dimming the lanterns at the windows. Along the still densely shadowed streets the young women with their rear guard of males loitered and, maybe, took the longest way home.



Toward the end of the row of Chinese stores, he caught up with Julia Salas. The crowd had dispersed into the side streets, leaving Calle Real to those who lived farther out. It was past eight, and Esperanza would be expecting him in a little while: yet the thought did not hurry him as he said "Good evening" and fell into step with the girl.



"I had been thinking all this time that you had gone," he said in a voice that was both excited and troubled.



"No, my sister asked me to stay until they are ready to go."



"Oh, is the Judge going?"



"Yes."



The provincial docket had been cleared, and Judge del Valle had been assigned elsewhere. As lawyer--and as lover--Alfredo had found that out long before.



"Mr. Salazar," she broke into his silence, "I wish to congratulate you."



Her tone told him that she had learned, at last. That was inevitable.



"For what?"



"For your approaching wedding."



Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet what could he say that would not offend?



"I should have offered congratulations long before, but you know mere visitors are slow about getting the news," she continued.



He listened not so much to what she said as to the nuances in her voice. He heard nothing to enlighten him, except that she had reverted to the formal tones of early acquaintance. No revelation there; simply the old voice--cool, almost detached from personality, flexible and vibrant, suggesting potentialities of song.



"Are weddings interesting to you?" he finally brought out quietly



"When they are of friends, yes."



"Would you come if I asked you?"



"When is it going to be?"



"May," he replied briefly, after a long pause.



"May is the month of happiness they say," she said, with what seemed to him a shade of irony.



"They say," slowly, indifferently. "Would you come?"



"Why not?"



"No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?"



"If you will ask me," she said with disdain.



"Then I ask you."



"Then I will be there."



The gravel road lay before them; at the road's end the lighted windows of the house on the hill. There swept over the spirit of Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was pain, a wish that, that house were his, that all the bewilderments of the present were not, and that this woman by his side were his long wedded wife, returning with him to the peace of home.



"Julita," he said in his slow, thoughtful manner, "did you ever have to choose between something you wanted to do and something you had to do?"



"No!"



"I thought maybe you had had that experience; then you could understand a man who was in such a situation."



"You are fortunate," he pursued when she did not answer.



"Is--is this man sure of what he should do?"



"I don't know, Julita. Perhaps not. But there is a point where a thing escapes us and rushes downward of its own weight, dragging us along. Then it is foolish to ask whether one will or will not, because it no longer depends on him."



"But then why--why--" her muffled voice came. "Oh, what do I know? That is his problem after all."



"Doesn't it--interest you?"



"Why must it? I--I have to say good-bye, Mr. Salazar; we are at the house."



Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned and walked away.



Had the final word been said? He wondered. It had. Yet a feeble flutter of hope trembled in his mind though set against that hope were three years of engagement, a very near wedding, perfect understanding between the parents, his own conscience, and Esperanza herself--Esperanza waiting, Esperanza no longer young, Esperanza the efficient, the literal-minded, the intensely acquisitive.



He looked attentively at her where she sat on the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of aversion which he tried to control.



She was one of those fortunate women who have the gift of uniformly acceptable appearance. She never surprised one with unexpected homeliness nor with startling reserves of beauty. At home, in church, on the street, she was always herself, a woman past first bloom, light and clear of complexion, spare of arms and of breast, with a slight convexity to thin throat; a woman dressed with self-conscious care, even elegance; a woman distinctly not average.



She was pursuing an indignant relation about something or other, something about Calixta, their note-carrier, Alfredo perceived, so he merely half-listened, understanding imperfectly. At a pause he drawled out to fill in the gap: "Well, what of it?" The remark sounded ruder than he had intended.



"She is not married to him," Esperanza insisted in her thin, nervously pitched voice. "Besides, she should have thought of us. Nanay practically brought her up. We never thought she would turn out bad."



What had Calixta done? Homely, middle-aged Calixta?



"You are very positive about her badness," he commented dryly. Esperanza was always positive.



"But do you approve?"



"Of what?"



"What she did."



"No," indifferently.



"Well?"



He was suddenly impelled by a desire to disturb the unvexed orthodoxy of her mind. "All I say is that it is not necessarily wicked."



"Why shouldn't it be? You talked like an--immoral man. I did not know that your ideas were like that."



"My ideas?" he retorted, goaded by a deep, accumulated exasperation. "The only test I wish to apply to conduct is the test of fairness. Am I injuring anybody? No? Then I am justified in my conscience. I am right. Living with a man to whom she is not married--is that it? It may be wrong, and again it may not."



"She has injured us. She was ungrateful." Her voice was tight with resentment.



"The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you are--" he stopped, appalled by the passion in his voice.



"Why do you get angry? I do not understand you at all! I think I know why you have been indifferent to me lately. I am not blind, or deaf; I see and hear what perhaps some are trying to keep from me." The blood surged into his very eyes and his hearing sharpened to points of acute pain. What would she say next?



"Why don't you speak out frankly before it is too late? You need not think of me and of what people will say." Her voice trembled.



Alfredo was suffering as he could not remember ever having suffered before. What people will say--what will they not say? What don't they say when long engagements are broken almost on the eve of the wedding?



"Yes," he said hesitatingly, diffidently, as if merely thinking aloud, "one tries to be fair--according to his lights--but it is hard. One would like to be fair to one's self first. But that is too easy, one does not dare--"



"What do you mean?" she asked with repressed violence. "Whatever my shortcomings, and no doubt they are many in your eyes, I have never gone out of my way, of my place, to find a man."



Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that he it was who had sought her; or was that a covert attack on Julia Salas?



"Esperanza--" a desperate plea lay in his stumbling words. "If you--suppose I--" Yet how could a mere man word such a plea?



"If you mean you want to take back your word, if you are tired of--why don't you tell me you are tired of me?" she burst out in a storm of weeping that left him completely shamed and unnerved.



The last word had been said.







III



AS Alfredo Salazar leaned against the boat rail to watch the evening settling over the lake, he wondered if Esperanza would attribute any significance to this trip of his. He was supposed to be in Sta. Cruz whither the case of the People of the Philippine Islands vs. Belina et al had kept him, and there he would have been if Brigida Samuy had not been so important to the defense. He had to find that elusive old woman. That the search was leading him to that particular lake town which was Julia Salas' home should not disturb him unduly Yet he was disturbed to a degree utterly out of proportion to the prosaicalness of his errand. That inner tumult was no surprise to him; in the last eight years he had become used to such occasional storms. He had long realized that he could not forget Julia Salas. Still, he had tried to be content and not to remember too much. The climber of mountains who has known the back-break, the lonesomeness, and the chill, finds a certain restfulness in level paths made easy to his feet. He looks up sometimes from the valley where settles the dusk of evening, but he knows he must not heed the radiant beckoning. Maybe, in time, he would cease even to look up.



He was not unhappy in his marriage. He felt no rebellion: only the calm of capitulation to what he recognized as irresistible forces of circumstance and of character. His life had simply ordered itself; no more struggles, no more stirring up of emotions that got a man nowhere. From his capacity of complete detachment he derived a strange solace. The essential himself, the himself that had its being in the core of his thought, would, he reflected, always be free and alone. When claims encroached too insistently, as sometimes they did, he retreated into the inner fastness, and from that vantage he saw things and people around him as remote and alien, as incidents that did not matter. At such times did Esperanza feel baffled and helpless; he was gentle, even tender, but immeasurably far away, beyond her reach.



Lights were springing into life on the shore. That was the town, a little up-tilted town nestling in the dark greenness of the groves. A snubcrested belfry stood beside the ancient church. On the outskirts the evening smudges glowed red through the sinuous mists of smoke that rose and lost themselves in the purple shadows of the hills. There was a young moon which grew slowly luminous as the coral tints in the sky yielded to the darker blues of evening.



The vessel approached the landing quietly, trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the dark water. Peculiar hill inflections came to his ears from the crowd assembled to meet the boat--slow, singing cadences, characteristic of the Laguna lake-shore speech. From where he stood he could not distinguish faces, so he had no way of knowing whether the presidente was there to meet him or not. Just then a voice shouted.



"Is the abogado there? Abogado!"



"What abogado?" someone irately asked.



That must be the presidente, he thought, and went down to the landing.



It was a policeman, a tall pock-marked individual. The presidente had left with Brigida Samuy--Tandang "Binday"--that noon for Santa Cruz. Señor Salazar's second letter had arrived late, but the wife had read it and said, "Go and meet the abogado and invite him to our house."



Alfredo Salazar courteously declined the invitation. He would sleep on board since the boat would leave at four the next morning anyway. So the presidente had received his first letter? Alfredo did not know because that official had not sent an answer. "Yes," the policeman replied, "but he could not write because we heard that Tandang Binday was in San Antonio so we went there to find her."



San Antonio was up in the hills! Good man, the presidente! He, Alfredo, must do something for him. It was not every day that one met with such willingness to help.



Eight o'clock, lugubriously tolled from the bell tower, found the boat settled into a somnolent quiet. A cot had been brought out and spread for him, but it was too bare to be inviting at that hour. It was too early to sleep: he would walk around the town. His heart beat faster as he picked his way to shore over the rafts made fast to sundry piles driven into the water.



How peaceful the town was! Here and there a little tienda was still open, its dim light issuing forlornly through the single window which served as counter. An occasional couple sauntered by, the women's chinelas making scraping sounds. From a distance came the shrill voices of children playing games on the street--tubigan perhaps, or "hawk-and-chicken." The thought of Julia Salas in that quiet place filled him with a pitying sadness.



How would life seem now if he had married Julia Salas? Had he meant anything to her? That unforgettable red-and-gold afternoon in early April haunted him with a sense of incompleteness as restless as other unlaid ghosts. She had not married--why? Faithfulness, he reflected, was not a conscious effort at regretful memory. It was something unvolitional, maybe a recurrent awareness of irreplaceability. Irrelevant trifles--a cool wind on his forehead, far-away sounds as of voices in a dream--at times moved him to an oddly irresistible impulse to listen as to an insistent, unfinished prayer.



A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree-ceilinged street where the young moon wove indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the gardens the cotton tree threw its angular shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in the cool, stilly midnight the cock's first call rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.



Somehow or other, he had known that he would find her house because she would surely be sitting at the window. Where else, before bedtime on a moonlit night? The house was low and the light in the sala behind her threw her head into unmistakable relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of vivid surprise.



"Good evening," he said, raising his hat.



"Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?"



"On some little business," he answered with a feeling of painful constraint.



"Won't you come up?"



He considered. His vague plans had not included this. But Julia Salas had left the window, calling to her mother as she did so. After a while, someone came downstairs with a lighted candle to open the door. At last--he was shaking her hand.



She had not changed much--a little less slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her, looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes. She asked him about the home town, about this and that, in a sober, somewhat meditative tone. He conversed with increasing ease, though with a growing wonder that he should be there at all. He could not take his eyes from her face. What had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze. The girl must have noticed, for her cheek darkened in a blush.



Gently--was it experimentally?--he pressed her hand at parting; but his own felt undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still care? The answer to the question hardly interested him.



The young moon had set, and from the uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-studded sky.



So that was all over.



Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?



So all these years--since when?--he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.



An immense sadness as of loss invaded his spirit, a vast homesickness for some immutable refuge of the heart far away where faded gardens bloom again, and where live on in unchanging freshness, the dear, dead loves of vanished youth.

Ang Isang Ekspresyon ay Mayroon Ding Limitasyon.

Para sa akin, ang isang ekspresyon ay ‘malayang pagpapahayag ng mga saloobin ukol sa napapanahong paksa o isyu, mapa-personal man ito o sosyal, emosyonal, ispirituwal o panlipunan. Sa pamamagitan nito, maipaparating nito ang isang mahalagang mensaheng dapat mabigyang-pansin.

Sa kasalukuyan, marami tayong ekspresyong naririnig at nakikita na kung minsan ay hindi nakasusunod sa pamantayang ipinatutupad ng mga may-kapangyarihan.

Katunayan, sa mahigit isang taon kong pamamalagi sa De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde (DLS-CSB), ay nagamit ko ang mga paraan ng pagmamasid na natutunan ko noong ako ay nasa hayskul pa. Agad kong nakita ang mga pagkakaiba sa pagitan ng mga mag-aaral sa mga gusaling nagsilbing pangalawang tahanan ng mga Lasalyano. Masasabi kong nasa hanay ng School of Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management (SHRIM) ang mga pinakadisiplinadong mag-aaral. At noong ako ay minsang magklase sa Angelo King International Center (AKIC) noong Nobyembre 5 ay mas lalo kong napatunayan na tama ang natuklasan ko.

Maging ang kalapit nating paaralan, ang Pamantasang De La Salle, ay hindi ko rin pinalagpas. Mula noong Setyembre 2009, tatlong buwan kong pinag-aralan ang kilos, galaw at pananamit ng mga mag-aaral doon. Unang nakatawag ng pansin sa akin ang isang estudyanteng naka-sleeveless tank top at bigla kong naalala ang Student Handbook na matagal ko nang hinahanap. Bukod pa rito, nakaagaw rin ng aking atensyon ang isang estudyanteng lalaki na naka-tsinelas lang. Naisip ko tuloy na “hindi masyadong pinagbabawalan ang mga mag-aaral ng DLSU na magsuot ng ganoon, taliwas sa mahigpit na ipinatutupad ng DLS-CSB.” Sana nagkamali ako ng konklusyon ukol sa bagay na iyon.

Balikan natin ang Benilde. Masaya sana ako’t mayroon na akong klase sa gusali ng School of Design and Arts (SDA) ngunit naalala ko ang pagmamasid na ginawa ko roon. Bagaman hindi pinagko-corporate attire ang mga mag-aaral doon, tulad ng mga estudyante ng SHRIM, School of Management and Information Technology (SMIT), School of Multidisciplinary Studies (SMS) at School of Professional and Continuing Education (SPaCE), natuklasan kong napakaraming mga mag-aaral ng SDA ang lantarang lumalabag sa Dress Code na ipinatutupad ng Office of Student Behavior (OSB). Tila ba mga walang pakialam ang mga naroon kung ano ang isinasaad ng Student Handbook. Wala ring pakialam ang iba kahit pa ipa-DO sila. Ang tanging dahilan: Upang ilabas ang kanilang ekspresyon. Upang maipakita nilang IBA SILA. Unique, kumbaga.

Sa puntong ito, dapat tayong maging mapanuri sa ating mga ekspresyon, lalo na’t may mga pagkakataong hindi natin namamalayang lumalagpas na pala tayo sa ating mga limitasyon, dahilan upang maabuso natin ang karapatan natin sa paglalabas ng ating mga saloobin. Higit sa lahat, dapat nating alalahanin na ang isang ekspresyon ay may pamantayan ding sinusunod. Ito ay nararapat ilagay sa isang maayos na paraan.

Kaya sa mga kasama ko sa Student Council (SC), bilang bagong kasapi nito ay nananawagan ako na kung maaari ay maging mapagmatiyag tayo sa ating paligid at paalalahanan natin ang mga nakakalimot sa mga tuntuning ipinatutupad sa ating pamantasan. At higit sa lahat, nawa’y magsilbi tayong magandang halimbawa sa ating kapwa upang mapaunlad ang kaayusan at disiplina sa loob at labas ng Benilde.

A Turning Point? That's Why.

Wow. what a good start. I can say that this term will be a turning point for me. My schedule was so great! That’s why starting from my counseling for my crisis intervention, I have already put up my full force.

Know what, ilang beses akong nagpabalik-balik here in Benilde. The main reason why is, Miss Pia, the Student Grants Office (SGO) director, is always off for a leave. kaya naman I’m very worried about my grant, and at the same time, I am always teary-eyed as I leave the Center for Counseling Services (CCS) Office. Whoa. I really can’t believe I survived.

In addition to that, when I’m already for the interview, Miss Pia told me that majority of the grantees who lost their privileges are due to their failure in Orientation and Development in Values (ORDEV-B). What I’m trying to ask them is, if there’s a grantee who luckily got a hundred percent waiver (in their tuition and fees) aside from me.

To be honest with you guys, as a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ), I will not be able to make it if I didn’t consult, first of all, the Almighty’s help. I would be forever grateful to Him for giving me another chance to study in Benilde. That’s why this time, I am trying my best-ever to at least, meet their standards and expectations. I am only doing this, in line not only with the Benildean, but most importantly, with the Christian mission, “to do ordinary things extraordinarily well for the glory of God”.