All Saints Day has taken its toll.

I started off my day rummaging through my CD collection in an attempt to rebuild my music library. I realized I didn't have any Dave Matthews CD, but I knew I had some Rockapella stuff stashed somewhere when I last backed up my stuff. Anyway I found it and has some nifty cover versions of "Ants Marching" and "Crash Into Me".

The day went on as any usual All Saints Day has as of the last few years. We went to the province to the cemetery where my paternal grandparents where buried. We ate KFC, prayed the rosary and went with some of my cousins to the highway to buy some ice cream to bring back.

When we got home, my mom, bro and I fixed all our stuff to go the cemetery where my maternal grandmother was buried. All seemed to be going well until we encountered heavy traffic in our "shortcut". Heavy traffic is an understatement, we didn't move for fifteen minutes and the road was too narrow for us to try to make a U-turn. Anyhow, we decided to wait it out calmly, but this red Honda behind us had other plans. He had this ghastly horn that seemed to be more apt for a truck than a Japanese sedan. He kept honking and honking that flat, throaty horn of his trying to get me to move. I didn't, rather I couldn't. Then he just decided to slam his car into my van's rear so that I'd move a bit. And he rode against traffic just to force his way out.

Turns out he's a cop.

Alrighty then, now I'm thinking, rather screaming, "WTF!" Yes, leave it to the ol' English teacher to come up with the wittiest thing to say at a moment's notice. Anyway my mom stopped me from retaliating, better to be alive with a dent in my bumper than than with a bullet in my head.

My car's older anyway. Hear me Dave Matthews, I will sing.

Again I shall continue my rant on blogs. Ironically I will do so on my blog.

It's not that I hate blogs, far from it really. It is really more of a question of substance. Maybe I am as guilty as others on the topic of substance. Again I digress.

What is sad about blogs is that they reveal the brat within all of us. I'm not just talking about that ickle-wittle brat, but the festering, socially unstable brat with in.

Once we come out into the open with our raw emotions lain out in the sun to dry and free for the cybervultures to scratch and peck away at morsels of our dignity. Lovely picture ain't it? By default, we expose ourselves to scrutiny and we have no right to complain about it. That's why we post our frickin' journals in PUBLIC isn't it? Ah well, my inital trepidations regarding "blogging" were really based on this insecurity of being exposed to the world. But that is part of the fun isn't it?

Ah well, clearly I overcome the fears that were rooted in that, but something else today has just...bothered me.

As I browsed through the blogs of my students, it was easy to see that the cardinal rule of blogging still holds true:Everyone's a Victim On Blog Who made that rule? I did. Any problems amigo?

It is plainly disturbing (and to some extent enlightening) to see the insecurities and the problems of the young(er) ones. Especially when they let the inner brats burst through from their precious words. I couldn't do this. I didn't get that. My mom's a bitch. My brother's an ass. Countless other misfortunes short of the plague are recounted.

Much more that mere litanies of sorrow, they're biting social commentaries that are somewhat deluded of their stature. Now I am not going to pretend I am a saint, I grew up a brat and I have fine things in life. However, people certainly do take the cake.

I cannot imagine how far off from reality my students dwell. I'm a bit off-center myself, but these boys are just in the outer rim of things. And by this I don't mean they marginalized (heh, a disclaimer of sorts for those willing to engage with me in a discourse about Spivak, Said and other droppable names) but in the outskirts of relevance.

What do I do? Nothing too drastic. Just let them be, boys will be boys. Brats will be brats.

They're only boys after all. One must not expect the world from them.

As longs as they don't expect everything from the world.

Last night I saw my high school classmates for the first time in 8 months....

It was rather odd seeing them again, especially seeing everything from this side of things. Am now of course a high school teacher. In high school, I was in love with the idea of hating the class but I of course loved my classmates. You don't spend 4 years with 40 guys, go through thick and thin with them without loving those assholes.

Nagsimula ang lahat sa iskuwela. nagsama-samang' labingdalwa'. Sa kalokohan at sa tuksuhan, hindi maawat sa isat-isa.

Funnily enough as I was driving to Podium, Telemachus (that's my new baby, my 20GB iPod) played APO Hiking Society's "SAAN NA NAPUNTA ANG PANAHON". If I had known what was in store for us later, I might have been reduced to blubbering fool in the middle of EDSA.

I arrived 30 minutes late, I had to squeeze myself beside Goquoi. The food wasn't too good, but I wasn't there to eat. I just wanted to see some of the guys. I, sharing my teaching anecdotes, ended up doing a lot of the talking.

Sa unang ligaw kayo'y magkasama, magkasabwat sa pambobola. Walang sikreto kayong tinatago, O kaysarap ng samahang barkada.

We moved from Yaku - Podium to Figaro - City Center on Ortigas. I couldn't seem to escape the Xavier School area. There I brought out quizzes to checked as we laughed our asses off at stories of our high school hi-jinx, rather mostly their escapades.

It was just so...disturbing that we were all sitting there, reliving our high school glory days and well working. From the looks of it, I was the only one who was actually talking about work. None of them wanted to talk about theirs. I guess I made the right decision about teaching, but then again, their income...grrr.....

At kung saan na napadpad ang ilan, sa dating iskwela'y meron' ding naiwan. Meron' pa ngang mga ilang nawala na lang, nakaka miss ang dating samahan.

We eventually did move on to the discussion of where the hell everyone is. We tried to do it by recalling everyone alphabetically but we couldn't remember everyone in the right order, much less figure out where are now.

saan na nga ba, saan na nga ba? saan saan na nga bang' barkada ngayon.

Napakahirap malimutan, ang saya ng aming samahan. Kahit lumipas na ang iilang taon, magkabarkada parin ngayon.

Magkaibigan, magkaibigan magkaibigan parin ngayon.