Eddie, a character from the book Five Things You Meet in Heaven, wants to be engineer so he can “build things.”

Cool. I took up engineering course several years back because I just wanted to have an important appendage before my name. Today, I’m a fresh graduate of Industrial Engineering course. So, all things considered, can I now build things? Que Horror! The only thing I can effortlessly build is a paper boat or plane.

After college, the only thing I can probably do is to type fast without looking down on my keyboard. And, oh yeah, how to sound reasonably rational when ask during interviews.

There’s really no point in this entry but to show you fellas how monochrome life has been after graduation. Nope, it’s not true life is exciting after school. It probably holds true to some, but not to many. Why should it excites everyone when after stepping out of school it also means stepping in the rat race. Why should it gives everyone wondrous epiphanies when after graduation you’re tagged as graduates, yes, but you’re also labeled Mr. Unemployed just the same?

My only consolation with this new routine (or lack thereof) is I’m able to go back reading. So far I’ve finished two tomes, and the list is piling up:

The Open Channel by Jill Morrow

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III

Rift in Time by Michael Phillips

The Laws Of Our Fathers by Scott Turow

Moments… by Fr. Jerry M. Orbos, SVD

The Millennium Stories by Frank Mihalic, SVD

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows by J.K. Rowling

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

I’m planning to read as much as I can before I’ll be working my ass off. So, what about you, what have you been doing after school?

I’m now a graduate of Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering! Yep, after eight years of college! But please subtract two years of working, and one year having been a “victim” of the change curriculum. I was supposed to graduate last 2005.

Still, I’m happy to graduate this year. I told you before, haven’t I? School is sweeter the second time around!

The ceremony went well this morning. The weather was okay. Everyone was having a good time. Except maybe of that evol thing the lady (who I praised highly before) did, I was enjoying the whole ceremony. I sincerely loved Father Salazar’s homily; I truly do. Methinks he’s a very good orator, not to mention a fantastic storyteller!

After the recession, my family and I went home directly. We celebrated my graduation with a simple thanksgiving. Few hours after, I went straight to Cebu Business Park for a job interview! On the afternoon, Roy, I, and couple of friends in college met up and had a celebration at Gimik, Mango Square. There we had a blast. We sang, er, screamed and shrieked the night away. Macoi didn’t make it because scatterbrained that he was, he slept like dead the whole afternoon.

I went home past 9:00 AM. Yup, early than usual. But I was delightfully surprised when friends from the community showed up at home with ice cream, pizza, drinks, and a gift in tow! I didn’t invite them in the afternoon because I told them we weren’t throwing a party. But… understandable and loving that they are, they still surprised me!

Webster should attach surprise in the definition of friendship. And speaking of surprise, I still have to push thru the one I supposed to give last week. =)

Strangely, I want that time to creep slowly. Because any moment now I’ll be bidding sweet goodbye to beautiful memories.

It’s true. The starting and finish lines don’t really matter much compared to the journey itself.

Ah, change. Sir Yap once said not to be afraid of change. Still, I’m deathly scared. For the last two years, I’ve considered my friends and school a home, and leaving them is like losing a piece of myself.

For several nights, I’ve made it a habit to sleep early dawn, five-o-clock the most. And this staying-up-at-ungodly-hours-tinkering-PC has gotten the worst out of me. Come class hours, I couldn’t recognize the teacher’s discussion from my seatmate’s chit-chats.

Roy was right. I should refrain myself from sleeping this late. After all, we don’t have the body of a teenager anymore. We’re both in our mid-twenties, and bodies on this age are started to weaken from the constant attacks of foreign elements.

Ah, if only I can adjust my mental faculty to work hard before twelve midnight. And if only I can speed up the internet connections before that hour also. You see, my mind works brilliantly the same time the internet connection works fast – and that is after twelve midnight.

If recent news were to be believed, we’re in for some very dire times.

Since World War II, says the news, the present economic situation in America has been the worst. If things won’t do well for the coming days, we’re heading for a recession, if not Great Depression.

I was born in the year 1983, and although the last Great Depression was seen and felt in the years 1930 to 1939, the information I read from novels, books, movies, and Internet that tackle Great Depression is reason enough to scare the hell out of me.

Poverty scares me shitless. So is hunger, unemployment, hopelessness, and helplessness. The knowledge that perhaps on the coming months jobs are scarce, prices are high, and political instability is something you have to deal with every waking moment worries me. Because there’s nothing funny about poverty albeit Filipinos are known to be cherry in spite of living in a hellhole.

And certainly there’s nothing great about waking up every morning, wondering what to eat come breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or if should you be having lunch at all.

I know. I’ve been acting like a worry-wart. You have to understand, I’ve been to a similar hellhole in the past and going back is something I couldn’t forgive myself should it ever happen.

*****************

There’s another Great Depression that happens around us. It happens when real friends are scarce, future is bleak, personal and family life is in turmoil.

But this, I’m afraid, is another story best to be told for another post.

But I can remember. I can remember beautiful or ugly memories. I can remember happiness and sadness vividly like watching a familiar movie.

I can remember words spoken to me – be that beautiful or ugly, striking or bland, uplifting or nasty. So long those words stir my soul, tinker my cosmos, or stab my heart.

Yes, I remember.

I remember what you said to me; those scathing words. Vividly. Verbatim. But I pretend not to. Because I promised myself to let it pass.

For now. Until this thing is over.

Me: What is your name?

Sam: My nem ish Menzhur Samon Peyno!

Me: Wow! Very Good! How old are you?

Sam:  My nem ish Menzhur Samon Peeeyno!

You see, gaining back friends fortifies the meaning of the phrase “what a wonderful world.”

*******

Losing, on the other hand, is entirely different matter. While gaining gives you life, losing is losing it. It’s like death. A very sad thing. No matter how you try to save it, it just doesn’t breathe back to life. Because it is already dead.
One can only let go, and mourn.

I am mourning.

In the living room, she’s catankerous; she thrashes about like a cat gone crazy. My Papa and I can’t do anything but watch her in sheer agony.

She’s totally helpless, you see.  My mom already took a pain reliever, and an antibiotic but the pain, she hisses, didn’t subside. And so every one minute or so, she yelps in pain, swears to kill herself, and runs to the sink to mouthwash.

I’ve had my experiences with toothache when I still was a stubborn kid, so I feel for my mom’s suffering completely.

Having a toothache is hellish. The pain sings like your gums were drilled with a sharp pointed object in a slow agonizing fashion; it electrocutes your whole body, consuming all your energy and sanity. True, having a bad case of tootache makes everyone suicidal.

Helpless that I am, I just can’t bring myself to leave her to sleep. I know just by being there would give her strength far stronger than physical. Presence does count. The knowledge that we are one with her would give her additional strength to endure the pain.

Yes, if there’s one thing that is powerful and enduring,  stronger and stubborn than toothache, or every imaginable pain, it’s love.