Portent*

everyone's writing about the tsunami or series of tsunamis that hit south asia last december. the highly ominous nature of that event was even suggested - the sky is falling, or whatnot. they could be right. life on earth, as we know it, is coming to an end.

i submitted my CW199 (research) critical paper, the intro to my thesis, last monday. that paper was long overdue, the deadline our professor, Paolo Manalo, gave us was almost a year ago - March 2004. he gave me an INC (as long as your grades are good enough, the department gives you a year to complete that subject) and the same greeting each and everytime we ran into each other ("O, Patrick, paper mo?"). this went on for the whole semester (1st AY 04-05), with my ubiquitous reply - blink-free, of course - "Sir, next week." i texted (an accepted verb, i believe) him after dropping my paper off at DECL, informing him of my completion. to which he replied:

[Oh no, may tsunami ba today? Lilindol ba ngayon? Tatama ba ako sa lotto? Himala! Walang himala!]

asar talo \'a-ser 'ta-loh\ n 1 : one who is made to feel like a jackass and has no one to blame but himself 2 : UNGAS

he is right. the sky is falling.


* - alternative title: "To Sir, with Love"