"Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will." ~Vernon Howard
I bet critics of this piece of monumental blooper lashed out at its author mercilessly, and rolled onto floor in laughter. This prized find may have rotten down the sink, but it sends me up into a convulsive state everytime it reminds me of my own back in high school. I was studying then in a barangay high school located in a hilly part of Sagay City. I would say, I'd been an average student since freshman high - not necessarily existing in class if not prompted, nor a bottom-dweller in every quiz. I also dread Fridays then. I have to be absent again to babysit my three-year old niece. Her parents are away the whole day going about with their wares. They are into buy and sell. (I don't have any choice - or I get stuck in my parents' home - mind and body stunted under the tall rows of sugarcane. So goes my excuse letter to my class adviser, " Please excuse me for making absent in your class because I care my niece today."
The following Monday, our adviser would do the roll call and stop at me like ten minutes 'applauding' my brand of English on top of my Friday absenteeism. We call her "aswang na bardot" which means slutty witch, obviously because she puts on thick and red lipstick and bathes in cheap perfume. The appearance is no more than a piece of stick with bulging eyes that could horrify Linda Blair in her fiercest. Mind you, she's one of the most confident English speakers I've ever met punctuated with her bizarre accent. Her mannerism in class is ridiculous too. She would flake off her dead skin cells wherever her hand touches, while her mouth froths tirelessly with her boundless vocabulary. So nobody really takes her seriously that's why she remains a spinster.
While most of us students did not bother to give her a damn other than her being a circus fixture, I guess I somehow gained a few from her wit. She would yell on top of her lungs if you say, "roses blooms". Or she would curse at the hopeless sets of genes you inherited from your ancestors for saying " she has a nice pair of eyeglass". Of course we would go on to finish high school, and some of my lucky classmates have gone on to become nurses or engineers, until we heard that she had retired already. I thought I admired her secretly for her passion to teach us the right English, though no one really showed her she's being appreciated. I didn't get a chance though, I tell you I was so shy to even recite in class much more to say thank you to her personally or some eyelashes bat collectively.
Just I remember her. Wherever she is now, this is my way of saying thank you to her. 'Cause I got nothing to write and my mind is empty. Trash bin stinks. Mind in wanderlust. Just a little laugh at this piece of genius brushes aside my worries of an empty fridge. What the heck! Christmas is drawing near and nearer, still it floats in the air haha! I hope my landlord doesn't freak out if I've got none for my dues. Merry Christmas in advance!
