Psalm 23...

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul:

he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:

for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 

Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:

and I will dwell in the house of theLord for ever.

The Book of Psalms...

"Alam mo Dear? Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal kita... Gusto ko lang malaman mo yun... Mahal na mahal kita... Lumaban ka naman oh. Please... Sobrang unfair mo naman. Akala ko ba kakain pa tayo ng seafoods sa restaurant. Bukas na yun eh. Mag-di-date tayong dalawa."

She took his hand into her face. She closed her eyes and felt his hand -- his hand that was like any other hand had now turned into something special, something more precious than anything around her. She shed her tears as they fell down one by one. For the next few minutes, she stayed like that, standing still beside his bed,  as if it was the last time that she could feel the warmth of his skin, the beat of heart, and the goodness of his soul.

Starting 3 o'clock in the morning, I checked his heartbeat per minute and oxygen rate from time to time. His condition turned severe turned to nearing death, I supposed. But she knew it, too. She knew it long before I did. On Monday afternoon, his mental condition was unstable. He called names of people who were not there at all. "Sino ka?" he asked his wife. And all she did was to cry.

He was gasping for air, and every time his heart skipped a beat, I would stand up and check him out. 182 beats per minute... 192 beats per minute.... 85 oxygen.... 70 oxygen... 55 oxygen... No... No... Please... Stop... Stop... And then, the unexpected happened... Flat line..........................

My Tito Mat, brother of my father, has just passed away on Monday, February 27, 2012, at exactly 4:28 in the morning. I was with her wife, Tita Joy. Tito Mat, whose heartbeat I checked every a few seconds up to his last breath, wherever you are right now, we want you to know that you are remembered and loved.

HE said that when some things are taken away, good and better things will be given in return. But the truth is, some things are IRREPLACEABLE . When her husband died, her heart went with him, too. She has lost something that can never be found again. But HIS promises are all so true, at the right time, good and better things will shower upon his family. HIS will shall not be questioned because in it are nothing but good, perfect, and pleasing.

He is a good man. He has touched the hearts of many, including mine. He is calm and patient.  A good father. A good husband. And the bible says, to be absent in the body is to be present with the Lord.

Woman, You Ain't Cheap...

"Can I see your thighs? Can I see your legs? Can I see your neck? Pag-ito sinabi ng boyfriend mo sayo, ito ang gagawin mo. Kunin mo ang pitaka mo at kumuha ka ng 80 pesos. Papuntahin mo siya sa Mang Inasal. Maraming thighs, breast, legs, at necks dun! unlimited rice pa! Oh come on, girls, hindi kayo cheap! at kayo naman boys, hindi cheap ang mga babae."

This was the statement of Pastor **** (I don't really know who he is, ever since I was 16, I don't take into account the names of the pastors of the churches of the places that I have live with. You see, I am a nomad. And it is first time that I am staying in one particular place for almost four years already. Perhaps, college is different.) His sermon on Sunday was the last installment of the four-part series called 'The Love Difference'. What's that? Don't ask me. I don't know either.

So there he went talking about love, lust, and sex. Nah, I can no longer remember all the things that he said. He is so loquacious, and his character was of a modern preacher. Very trendy. It was really a nice discussion though. He cited two important points:

1) Fall inlove by means of character not by emotion because your emotion will betray you. Your heart is the greatest deceiver.

2) Marriage is not a chance, it is a choice. You will only choose one person out of the millions out there. That is already a big deal. Choose the person who will suit your temperament. The one who is a good provider. The one who can be your companion at difficult times, the one who will share with you the happiness, and at the same time, the sorrows of being parents to your little monsters who will later on become hard-headed adults. Parenthood is a tough job. Choose someone who can be your best friend.

Pakakasalan ka tapos hindi ka rin naman pala kayang pakainin tatlong beses isang araw, saan ang pag-ibig dun? --> I must absorbed this one...

I Hate You Pa... (Just A Bit Though)

I rarely see him, my father. Once a year, perhaps. (Once every two years to extreme the rarity.) I was actually excited about meeting him that I needed to leave my instructor and my geology classmates while trekking the hinterlands of Negros Oriental.

I was dirty and all. Name it. Mud stains all over my shirt. I soiled my pants. The bus passengers, no doubt, must have concluded that I was a hinterland boy going down to the more civilized town to buy some goods. I sat on the center aisle of the bus because there were no longer vacant seats. Everyone looked at me.

When I got off the bus, I saw him directly, sitting in a chair along with my uncles and cousins. He, too, saw me, and looked at me for a brief period of time. When I say brief, it means three seconds. He smiled, a bit. That's all. No words at all. I wanted to kick him. Nevertheless I was happy because I saw my grandpa. I haven't seen him for a while since he remarried. I wanted to kick him, too, when I have learned that he'd marry another woman. I hope he still remembers my Lola who now resides in heaven.

The helper of the house offered me something to eat. I chewed the meat like bubble gum because it was not properly steamed-cook. Father, on the other hand, sat beside me and ask me this lame question: "Nus-a ka uli yan? (Ryan, when are you going home?)" I just arrived and you want me to go home right away. Damn you! I wanted to tell him. But I didn't. Instead I answered him politely.

Father is tall, a six-footer. My cousins are all tall, too. They range from five-foot nine to six-foot four. I am the smallest, not to mention the thinnest. But my father and I almost look the same. He has a   mole on the left outer-lining of his nose. Fair-skinned, a bit chinito. It's just that he is the silent type while me, on the other hand, is not really that silent. He is also a Chick Boy, the certified one. Me? I like women. Just that.

He is my father. I like him that way. :)

Best Valentines Ever

Pinagtripan ako ng mga klasmeyts ko noong Lunes, araw bago mag Valentines Day. Sinapak ako sa mukha ng ilang beses. Medyo masakit din. Hehehe. May mga pasa sa'king mukha. Hihihi. Gusto ko sanang gumanti pero nasa loob kasi ng skul eh. May araw din sila sa akin. Anyways, while resting on my bed this week, since I didn't feel like going out because of the minor physical injuries that were drawn all over my face, I have decided to make a poem.

Pag sinabi ko ba sayong gusto kita, maniniwala ka?

Ano bang magiging reaksyon mo? Tutunga lang ba o speechless?

Tatakbo ka ba, kakabahan, I'm sure mag-fre-freak-out ka

Pero alam ko ang isasagot mo -- Ewan ko sayo, ang panget mo!

Note: Poem ba 'to? resulta lang siguro 'to ng mga pasa ko sa mukha. It was the best Valentines ever.

Pepen says It's Quaky

"Spirited Away tonight," was the reply of my friend when I asked her if which one of Hayao Miyazaki's animated films would air that Saturday evening.

As soon as I've learned about that, knowing that I only have five minutes left before the movie begins, I hurried upstairs and awoke all of my nephews and cousins who have already slumbered the night away.

It took me some time to wake them up because there were six of them, but I did it anyway. So there in the Sala we watched the adventure of Jahiro, a mortal, and Haku, a mythical dragon of the Haku river. I also need to mention my uncles and my older cousins who complained when I switch the channel to Disney while they were watching an action movie. I told them that I rarely watch TV shows, and the last time I saw a film aired on TV was on December last year.

Suddenly, Mami Merlin, sister of my father, went downstairs. Held in her arms was Pepen, my nephew, her apo. "Di ko nahan tulog taas. Linog! (I don't want to sleep upstairs because it's gonna quake)" three-year old Pepen cried. "Lantaw lang ta TV pen (Let's just watch TV Pepen)," I told him, smiling, readying my arms if ever he wanted to come over me.

But he did not. Instead he wanted to sleep in the sofa with her Lola. Leaving us no other choice but to turn off the television. Pepen spoiled the fun. And again, for the second time that night, we slumbered the night away.

I Hope They Fail...

"Ang hiling ko lang ngayong valentine's day ay sana wala nang mga walang kwentang estudyante sa mundo. Sana ma-fail silang lahat para mabawasan naman ang mga bobo sa classroom."

I really want to curse right now. I really want to say all the awful and profane words that I've learned since grade one. It is already past midnight and here I am, fully awake, like a zombie whose hands are freezing due to evening chills. I am making a report in one of my major subjects. I'm a Geology student by the way. And this report, this scientific report that is supposedly a group report, is only written by me, me alone.

And my group-mates? They must have been sleeping right now like Snow White (Is she the cartoon character that slept over a decade? I'm not sure. Correct me please.) restoring all their  energy for tomorrow's activity. I mean, today. Because you know why? This 3:30 A.M., yeah right, three hours from now, we will be having our Field Study at the hinterlands of Mabinay, Negros Oriental. Isn't that great? We will be walking all day long, tracing rocks, sampling soils, mapping the area, and worse? a lecture under the heat of the sun.

If only this is an essay, or shortstory or anything that is related to Literature, this must have been chicken, but NO. I can write anything, but please not a scientific report that is due three hours from now. I am a writer but I am not a scientific writer.

I am still writing the introduction. Eleven pages to go. Three hours? I just need patience right now. I hope, I hope, I hope that my group-mates will fail in this subject. That will give me a peace of mind. Please please...

When Everything is White...

Death is a terrible thing that befalls us human. It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...It sucks...

Two doctors went inside to his private room at the hospital. They were redressing his wound at the back portion of his head, in which he recently acquired, just that morning, after he slipped off the bathroom floor. For some reasons, his falling was the result of the sudden loss of his consciousness, quite a bad sign for a man who doesn't have white hairs, and the loss of strength and glow of his youthful years.

He is in his late thirties, a father of two lovely daughters, and a wonderful husband to his beautiful wife. Unfortunately, for a reason that is still unfathomable, that with life's irony of ironies, why him? But they have become used to it. DEATH is something that they have become accustomed with. It took them some time though, to realize, but now, they have understood death more than anybody else. Neither one of them don't want to think about it.

I was there inside that room, too, quietly seated, watching the men in white robe as they did some checking in his newly-acquired cut. The vertical cut in his head was two inches long, with that I assumed that there's gonna be an addition to his Calvary of medicines -- vitamins and antibacterial capsules that he needs to take everyday, and another addition to the queue of his sessions of herbal and medical therapies, and that is surgery. His cut was deep enough that the doctors referred him to a specialist, a surgeon to be specific.

And I was there, nodding my head several times after each immediate instruction that was given to me by one of the doctors. Nodding was all I could do. In a while, when the doctors went out, and the room has fallen into deep silence except for the nineteen-forgotten air-conditioning system, I came over to him, in my right hand was a bowl of steaming oatmeal that I cooked earlier.

He looked at the oatmeal while he sat properly at his elevated hospital bed. He looked bewildered, sad, unhappy of what's going on. He didn't say a thing. "Tito, let's eat," I carefully said in complete Cebuano. His response was a couple of seconds late. He said that he couldn't eat hot oatmeal, thus, giving me no other choice but to leave it on his nightstand to cool down. Watching over him when I have a vacant time at school is all the help that I could ever do.

Name Your Prize Baby...

To where I was seated, two sets of Hawk eyes  looked at me stealthily from a distance, thus making me feel uncomfortable, while waiting for the noodle soup that I ordered earlier to arrive.

"Ry, naay sigeg lantaw nemu (Ry, someone's looking at you)." A friend of mine told me, smiling, the one that has malice in it, the one that was to provoke a hearty laugh not just to me but to everyone in our group.

"Kabalo ko (I know)," was my straight reply. There were six of us, uniformly aligned in a single bench at a local fast-food store here in Dumaguete City.

"Halinon jud kag mga bayot. (These gays are hitting on you. You are a bestseller.)" They now started to tease me, and later on, started making fun of me. I didn't know how to react with their teasing. I just grinned, and rode on with the bullets of jokes that they gunned upon me. It was non-stop.

I told them to shut up because if not, those perverts would come and try to start a conversation with us. But they didn't. Instead, "Naay problema ug kwarta among kauban diri oh! Barato rani (Our friend here has financial constraints. You might wanna help him at a good deal)." They were selling me!

And all I did was to utter the word "Shit!", lowered down my head and started eating my meal as fast as I could. I looked for the exit and waited for them outside.

We wandered the deserted downtown Dumaguete, laughing out loud with some random stuff. Everything seemed so fun, but in a moment I least expected, a motorcycle stopped ahead of us, impeding our walking. With it were two gentlemen wearing not-so-guy clothes, who later on parked their motorcycle in a corner and neared us.

Their eyes were focused on me, I somehow noticed, but I looked the other way around and started to walk away. "Dong, kanang ga-yellow. Ali sa (Boy in yellow, come here)," they said. Boy in yellow was me.

Trying to be polite, I said, "Unsa man Sir?" They came closer to me, closer and closer. With that, I stepped backwards little by little, more and more, until my back landed unto a concrete surface, a dead end.

"Name your prize." they asked me. I stiffened, and all of my DotA friends whose with me a while ago were now laughing at me from a distance, they're having a good time, two of them are my publication friends, an artist and a webpage master. My forehead was filled with sweat, there was a sweat-producing faucet attached to my head.

"Name your prize baby," they asked me, again. My evil side wanted me to 'dragon fist' each of their faces. But I tried to be polite once again since both of them were respectable gentlemen. "Sorry kaayo, Sir. I'm not for sale. You must have misunderstood my friends." Then, I ran away and showed a finger to my awaiting friends.

A week after that, the incident happened again, three times. Why can't they be just girls? I would love to sell myself even for free, my pervert alter ego is telling me.