i'm baaaaaaack!!!

Our semestral break is about to end and I’m back in dorm here in Katipunan, back in dirty polluted Metro Manila. Sucks, I know, but in the pursuit of higher learning and wisdom, one must make sacrifices. Yeah. Whatever.

Anyway, updates, updates, updates. I just found out the two worst things that could happen to you when going to the beach. The first is accidentally leaving your towel at home. The second is getting horrendously sick while in tropical paradise. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to guess that both happened to me when I went to Boracay last weekend. But I still had fun, though. I mean, I was in the beach. What more could a water baby like me ask for?

Nanay told me about the first time they took me to the sea. It was in Subic, and I was still a toddler then. I was really scared at first, but I eventually got used to the water. I enjoyed it so much that, if my mother is to be believed, she had to pretend she was bitten by a crab to get me out of the water.

Anyway, I just realized that I half hate and half love Boracay. It’s an amazingly beautiful island, and I’m not saying that just because I’m from Aklan. I’m really proud of my province, unlike some people out there, considering they were born and bred in that province. I was born in Manila, spent my childhood in Manila, am back in Manila to study, but Kalibo holds my heart. The pretentious ones out there seem to turn their back to their beloved hometown because they want to be bona fide Manileños and Manileñas. They try to be oh so cool and oh so hip and oh so urbane, but believe me, beneath all their designer clothes and haughty looks, there lurks the insecure promdi. Oooh, you’d say. Pau is being bitter and envious again. So what else is new? But I digress.

I love Boracay for all its beauty, but it is gradually becoming commercial. “Own a piece of paradise!” invites one of the flyers of a real estate agency selling land in the interior of the island. And I heard that some big-shot oil company is planning to put up a gas station there. It would bring profit, more jobs, and a plethora of other benefits, I know. I’ve nothing against progress, but the existence of a gas station would encourage people to bring in more cars, tricycles, trucks, etc. More vehicles, more pollution. Beach paradise and capitalism just don’t go together.

I love Boracay during the day, when the sun is warming the white sand and blue waters. When kids are splashing in the water and couples are walking by the beach. When the soft sea breeze comes and all your worries just seem to float away (except when I found out that Cabral will fail me in Calculus. I was talking to him over the phone, asking him to please lower the cut off mark again so that I could get a D instead. He showed no mercy.) But when the sun sets, a different set of people roam the streets. Boracay is a great party place, but I hate seeing sunburned foreigners guzzling beer and getting very intimate with a scantily clad native woman who obviously is just a pampalipas-oras, if you get what I mean. I don’t know, but it strikes me as vulgar and obscene. I feel raped, abused, taken advantaged of, even if it’s not really my neck that’s being wrapped around with a big hairy arm.

Denden pointed out over lunch that there is flesh trade here in Manila, and sometimes it’s even worse. But I haven’t seen anyone plying her (or his) trade here yet, and I intend to keep it that way. Besides, Boracay is my paradise and I want it unsullied by the evils of our society.

Anyway, lest I get carried away, another update. Our much-awaited high school yearbook is out! After waiting for more than three years, our batch could finally get a copy of this important memento of our stay in Pisay. Was it worth the wait? I really can’t answer that because I’m a part of the yearbook committee myself so I’d be biased. I did see a few errors here and there, but it is nevertheless nice and well-written (ahem ahem. Hehe, just kidding!) I especially liked the layout of the pages containing the messages from the various VIPs (Pres Arroyo, our directress, our academic head, et al). Unlike in the ordinary yearbooks, the pictures of these VIPs were large and unencumbered by frames or borders. Maybe I’m huli sa uso but it’s a new and innovative layout, and I really like it. I wonder who “invented” this new way.

I hope I haven’t bored you yet. Actually, I still have another thing to tell you, but I think I kinda got carried away with putting my thoughts into writing that this entry got longer than what I had expected. I guess I have plenty in my mind. Oh well. Until next time.