Of course it was a relief that after weeks of waiting, you’ve finally arrived. Then again, my instincts knew better and told me that you would bring nothing but catastrophe—that you’re the psychic twin of someone I’ve used to ridicule with all my heart.

You share the same pretty face (albeit you look sweet with your pimpled face whereas she seems snooty with her unblemished skin), almost the same height, the same hair length, the same attitude problem, and lastly, the same penchant for using a language the world knows you’re not well-acquainted with. And let me tell you, you’ve got a peculiar accent which I’m starting to love (if I could just help being so ironic). At least you know how to dress well, the class would be better off with the only one undisputed fashion icon; I don’t need another one to roll my eyes on.

I won’t make this pointless letter any longer (or any more pointless), for words alone can never express how much I feel for you. Damn you. Damn that subject Basic Economics with Eternal Damnation and Agaricus Mushrooms as well. Life would have been better for all of us had you not declined the offer of that world-renowned company you brag about.

P.S. You liked to say there’s no free lunch (as a proof that you’re a budding economist). Well I say, there’s no free publicity in my blog, too. You’ll pay for this in God’s time. In God’s time, dearie.

At Booksale, I got another Scarpetta novel, chanced upon a copy of Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite which Irene bought, while the other three drooled over the eleventh book in Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak series. We thought of seeing a movie, but being the GCs that we are, opted to go back to school for a long overdue first quiz in Psychology…only to flunk it.

Then came Miss K. bringing yet another round of shudders within me as she announced that we’ll have a 2-minute speaking activity again: this time, a prepared speech on a topic that was selected at random in a pouch filled with folded pieces of paper submitted by everybody in the class. Some of the girls have picked out such vague topics as Life, Death, AIDS. The inconsiderate ones didn’t know how to be a bit more specific. And the others picked out subjects as absurd (The only appropriate adjective I can think of, because the initial reaction this topic provokes is a HUH?) as Pasig River Rehabilitation, and as politically-oriented as 2010 Presidentiables and Automated Elections. I am contented with mine, however. The question was written in slender letters that would pass for legibility: Are you in favor of those television programs making Pinoy versions of such Korea Novela [sic] instead of producing unique Pinoy stories? There, I got the thought loud and clear, and if I’ll be just as confident as I am when I spell words out in a spelling bee, I know I can deliver my speech well on Friday. Who’s the patron saint of public speakers, anyway? May whoever-that-is bless my disorganized mind.

Postscript: The topic I submitted was Writing vs Speaking. I saw how the lucky one who picked that winced and I almost told her with arms akimbo: Hey, that’s already a bargain.

“Yan na kurso mong ‘yan, walang katahimikan. Kung saan ang kaguluhan, ang masaker-an, dun ka.”

Father blurted out Thursday night over the news, as the remains of the Maguindanao massacre victims were exhumed from where they had been cold-bloodedly buried by God-knows-who. Now I know who’s to blame for my paranoiac tendencies. So paranoia runs in the blood.

He kept spitting those words out while his attention occasionally drifted to me, engaged in a book review, to the television screen. I looked at him nonchalantly for a second and went back to work. What’s the big deal, anyway? So I am taking up journalism, but I’m just on my second year, for crying out loud mi padre! Nothing to worry about yet. I’m not even sure if I’ll be a full-fledged journalist after, say, six years. How can you ascertain that I won’t be an out-of-school youth or a single mother the next year or the year after the next?

So the killing, it’s perverse, no sane man would not condemn it. (And no doubt the minds of the perpetrators are more perverse.) But danger is part of the fieldwork, if not the untimely death. All we can do now is appeal to the good nature of the government to take action immediately and to the crime operatives to handle the corpses with care.

Simply gruesome. (Photo source: http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/)

Hell, what if someone’s still breathing under that heap of rubble and gets crushed by the backhoe? Kidding. But I’m pretty sure Dr. Kay Scarpetta would be very mad had she been able to witness how they’re distorting the evidences. I’ve had enough of Cornwell’s Scarpetta novels that I can practice forensic pathology right at this moment. Boo.

However, these are mere words, and to borrow what Jeffren had said way back, mere words mean nothing. It’s darned easy to denounce a thing with words. But the truth is that, the monstrosity of the massacre has not yet sunken deep within me. True, I am a journalism student, but now, everything is in a limbo. We’ll cross the bridge, Father, when we get there.

How cliché.

You see, people, simple reporting and reciting in class are way different from extemporaneous speaking. So please. Spare me, and everybody else from your great expectations. There’s nothing more excruciating than adding insult to the injury. So please. Had I not braced myself for your ruthless eyes scrutinizing me as I stood there, composing myself and my thoughts on local and foreign shows, I could have cried in spite of myself. So please. Do not give me the impression that you are still those blithering idiots I used to nitpick.

So that’s just about all I can say regarding the freaking thing that transpired yesterday. From the little that I recall of it.