May 26, 2004
class schedules part 2
anyway, new philo classes have cropped up! yehey, right? nope, not really. although there is now no need to practice my filipino speaking skills, and no need to run from one corner of the school to another, i now have the responsibility to wake up early. the new english philo class which fits my schedule nicely is the class of... (music please) ...miguel de jesus. 730 to 900 t-th, kostka. miguel. i can deal with this. i know i can.
but there you go. if things go right and i don't lose any classes (four hundred and sixty-three. goodness.), i think i'll be able to snatch miguel's class and the other classes, as well. good luck to me. good luck to all of us seniors.
foster brothers
because of this influx of free text messages, i decided to text those people in my phonebook whom i haven't seen and heard from for a long time. i thought this was rightly so, since i felt digital cobwebs forming around the names of those people in my phonebook. after i did this wonderful task, i was glad to see that out of the many people whom i texted, many replied, and three of them were my foster brothers.
(foster brothers: noun. 1. usually found residing in a single room in the male dormitory, foster brothers are upperclassmen assigned to take care of you while you are still a freshman. they help you go through the orientation process. if they are nice enough [and if you are nice enough], they might help you go through your college years. 2. you become a foster brother if you are an upperclassman. you have to deal with your own freshmen assignments. if you are nice enough [and if they are nice enough], you might help them go through their college years.)
i miss my foster brothers. even as a freshman in a new place living in a new home, i never felt threatened or unsure. they helped me go through the tough part of fitting in and adjusting to the new surroundings. when i was with their company, i felt the stresses of college life melting away with every joke uttered and with every game played. they felt so easy to be with. i guess i'm not the only one who felt this because every foster brother they have had have come to bond with them even beyond the orientation process, a phenomenon so rare not even i could imitate the same camaraderie with my younger foster brothers. it's funny, though, because i don't think they actually realize this. i think they just take this in stride, doing all these nice things without putting a thought into it. i guess it's natural for them to act this way.
like i said, i was glad to see that they replied to my text messages. i was even happier to hear that their lives have turned out all right after college. fra works as a commodities trader (i'm not sure if this is right, but it sounds right) in a budding company; clarence studies in medical school and has successfully circumcised his first patient (the anaesthesia lost its effect near the end of the operation with 2 stitches left. ouch!); justin works as a guidance teacher in a catholic school in cebu (girls would flock to him for "guidance," so he says); and jono is in canada, basking under the canadian sky (whatever that sky is, i do not know).
it's good to hear from people you care about and from whom you haven't heard for a long time. but it's infinitely better to hear that their lives have taken turns which they are proud of and happy about.
hospital-induced hiatus
my mother was admitted in the hospital last saturday. my brothers, my father and i took turns in visiting her to make sure she's all right, with my father sleeping in the hospital at nights. i don't know the exact details of her problem, really, but i know she was operated on last monday. my father told me that it was supposed to be only one surgery (the removal of her uterus, i think), but then the doctor discovered that her appendix was also in danger. thankfully, this was found out in time and was operated on immediately. this saved my mother from going through two separate operations, with twice the cost and twice the physical trauma.
a weird thing, though: i thought there were three operations! when kenneth and i visited my mother last tuesday, the day after her operation, her voice was hoarse and she wasn't able to speak properly. i then thought that she also underwent a tonsillectomy! three operations! imagine that. this was not the case, though. it was just my mother's instinct to narrate every single detail of each experience that came up. my father told me that when she awoke from her anaesthesia-induced sleep, she immediately tried to tell my father the things she remembered and inquired on those which she could not recall. consequently, she lost her voice. literally. si mama talaga. (there's a scientific explanation why this happened, something with saliva and lack of intake of food, but i won't get into that biology stuff. hee.)
anyway, i'm glad the worst of it is over. she's resting now in san pedro hospital as i type this. there are a lot of food in the refrigerator, a lot of warmth from the blanket and pillows, and most importantly, a lot of love and concern from those around her. you know what i think? i think she's going to do just fine.
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