MY BLOGWORTHY WEEK

Following are events that made my first week in Manila remarkable (i.e. funny & unhumdrum). I’m not sure if you can affix un- before ‘humdrum’ but when you are in the field of linguistics, you have the right to make up words. Right???

Early one evening, we received a shocking news from down south that brought my husband to a state of catatonia, at least for an hour or so. He won’t eat nor talk so I changed my clothes in haste (without turning on the lights) and dragged him to the nearest theater to see a movie and try to get his mind off the bad news. Along the way, I saw a man looking at me weird—like up and down, side to side, and even kept looking back at me when we already passed each other. I looked at myself and to my horror, saw that my pretty blouse is inside out with all the threads and edges of the clothe hanging down. I told B and he looked at me and said, “Go to the nearest CR and do something about it!” He was laughing then! I wasn’t keen on being laughed at in a situation like that but at least he came out of his catatonic state. When I finally found the toilet, it was full of people and the queue was like at least 5-10ft in all the cubicles. So I stood there, and before it was my time to go in, at least half of the people there had this look in their eyes. So I kept saying, “Yeah, I know! That’s why I’m here!”

In school, the teachers are to wear two sets of uniforms. Last Monday, I went to school and saw that I am the only one in those colors. Haha, I wore the one for Tuesday. On Thursday, I was so sure that I am wearing the right one until I saw my program director. I was wearing the one for Friday after all. So last Friday, rather than wearing the same thing I wore on Thursday, I just wore my favorite blouse and made a promise to my boss that next week, I’m going to get it all correct. I have to remember that Monday and Thursday goes together and so does Tuesday and Friday, and not the usual, MWF, and TTh pattern; after all, Wednesday is a free day. Yes, I messed up the whole week.

Last Friday was my first full length lecture. The first word that I needed to write on the white board was “Phonemic Analysis.” The foot of the /p/ that I wrote looked like a crooked tail of a rat because I was trembling. It’s not like I have never taught the topic or stood in front of people before but that time, I was all nerves. After a few minutes, I got into the hang of things and relaxed and enjoyed making life difficult for the learners. My nerves probably was due to the fact that half of my students were as old as my mother and even look as stern as her. They’re all taking their Master’s in Applied Linguistics. My mentor said that she thought the lecture went well. I hope so.

The Applied Linguistics Program director invited me to present a paper on the upcoming conference of Philippine Bible Society. My first thought was, “Awww, more sleepless nights!” On second thought, I might.

On Saturday morning, we had a nice lunch at the Kenny Roasters in the new Trinoma mall. Our friends who will go to Myanmar soon invited us. We had a very nice time—B and I, R and J and their cute son, and our other friend R. We were able to catch up on our gossip! J We were classmates in the Diploma in Applied Linguistics some four years ago and this was our first reunion. I really enjoyed the time and of course the food. :)