I want to be a helicopter pilot! As in serious, burning desire. One day I'm going to own a Robinson R44.






And I want to learn under Captain Halili.

Now, lessons are P500k-P1 million. The R44 is $400,000.

Hey, I don't foresee it happening soon. But someday.

     I didn't realize how one decision could make you grow up phenomenally.  A year ago my biggest concern was getting another dog or upgrading my OS and now it's all about savings, investments, and preparations all directed towards the big goal: to get married in 2010.  A very realistic time frame I feel great about, owing to a strong gutfeel that everything will be Perfect.
    I'd get married earlier if I could, god knows my prudish mother is hounding me day and night to get married next year, for fear of my soul burning eternally in hell because of my lifestyle.  But that is another story.
    So, bridesmaids, you know who you are.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Robert Frost

I've tried to forget certain ghosts for years, thinking they had faded into the woodwork, but then things have a way of resurfacing, like figures in oil that have been painted over.  They slowly bleed out, until one day they materialize right before your eyes and you realize that while some sins are negligible, others are not.

When it came crashing down on me last week, I cried and cried for days.  I don't know what or who for, maybe over the futility of words or gestures. Or maybe for everyone.  What was heartbreaking was that though I had brought down all that grief, I was powerless to undo or repair it.

I learned though, that as I was given a chance, so too should I give others theirs.  Pretty elementary idea, but one that's so easy to forget sometimes.

Thank you Kris for the wishing spaniel. I hope my wish does come true.

Some excerpts from my students' poems.  These CW 10 students can give majors a run for their money.Their progress is unbelievable. They were sprouting full-rhymes and end ryhmes about "my best friend forever, parting will come never" at the beginning of the semester.

from a poem about a mother:

"She makes me read Shakespearean plays
while waving a long stick to drawings set aflame.

Then she goes about lightly
making black fried eggs over blazing wood.

Her stringed laughter extends to the neighborhood
as I lose a milk tooth she keeps track of."


From a poem by the same student:

"If in the night
a silver stallion appears,
it would redeem the drowned stone
from the falls, cascading and savage.

Out of the somber water
against the blackish dawn is a silver stroke
See the stone and the stallion
together evading
night's eternal woe."

Galing no. Meng Chiaoish.

from another class:

"Now, it is as if
life lines
never existed in this lifetime
and suddenly the ink
of tattoos fades away
mornings like
2 am seems, still too early
to get to bed
to toss and turn

Your ship sails back
to the coast
of my childhood

It was a daydream, or a
night-tale,
now, washed out by a flickering
of city lights."

from another student:

"Passing by the old maple tree,
we slowed down
and watched as the tree reluctantly shed,
the last of its leaves.

Then slowly my body drifted,
gently settling itself on your soft, warm back.
You never stirred.
But as we moved again,
I could feel the touch of your hands,
your fingers slowly slipping into mine."

yet another student:

"The greatness of my intellect
wasn't able to comprehend a thing
this has turned the night black
No matter how many candles I light now
Earth, without the sun
will just be an iceberg of sorrows."


Marami pang maganda. Si Kris saludo sa final poems ng mga 'to, especially this one student who has a penchant for Simic-ish endings. 

These are freshmen, by the way. But even then, there is so much to learn from them.