March Mellows.

Let's pretend I'm having a cup of chocolate topped with marshmallows and cinnamon.

Or not. Truth is, to claim that the past 31 days had been serene for me is a grand delusion. It is nothing like that, not the month of March in this dimension called academe. But guess what, my report card says I am getting good in this seeing-the-glass-half-full business. Allow me to share 41 things I loved about this month.

- Tidying up the fridge. This one’s a fulfilling job for OCs like me.

- Lots.of.metal.puzzles.solved.without.any.pair.of.pliers.near.the.vicinity.

- Memorable discussions in my SSP7 1:00-2:30PM class (as a teacher, nothing compares to the feeling of formulating relevant answers to my students’ equally relevant questions – all in a nick of time).

- Seeing Jollibee dance and wave at me as I tossed a forkful of spaghetti into my mouth after a long, tiring day.

- New paper bills. It’s great to have banker friends around and some luck at the ATM dispenser.

- Doing the Sunday grocery at Robinsons. Pretending like we’re a married couple buying kitchen wares, canned goods, oatmeal, toiletries, herbs, and…junk food!

- My Araw ng Dabaw that started with a Café Andessa lunch with Ella, Rango date with Kong, dinner at Coco’s and three Mary Rose Rides with college friends Jacky, Lisa, Jezza, Kong, Ken and Randy! (I don’t want to remember how much I spent that day, but I don’t want to forget all the laughter I shared with my buddies.)

- Hot pink swimming shorts for the beach getaway come April.

- Having 7 out of 54 students (2 classes) to get a 50/50 in my finals.

- Dawn walks with mom from the house to the national highway, and then back to the end of Belen Road to do some stretching, and then wait for a plane to land on the runway, which is our cue for walking  back home. Just in time for coffee.

- My last meeting for ANTH 133 and ANTH 181. Whew.

- SSP7 wrap ups. My last words for my favorite classes.

- Discovering how much one can truly save when buying veggies at the bagsakan instead of the grocery. For this, I have to thank Maam Sheila.

- That extraordinary dinner at Tadakuma (and dessert at Ice Giants) with Suey and Krong, and the long walk that came after it.

- Signatures on my clearance form.

- Entertaining my ANTH 181 students with my signature “can’t-hold-my-pee” stories starting from kindergarten.  And I did this while they were answering my finals.

 - Arranging a successful breakfast birthday celebration for Krong with the core group (Suey, Ching, Janice + Gabby). But it wasn’t that difficult, especially since everybody loves the guy.

- That one hour hodgepodge convo  between me, Gabby and Krong. Two brilliant guys, one awkward girl, tons of hilarious stories to share.

- Serving chicken skewers for my family.

- Ella, Lysette and Andi – My laugh out loud sisters. Three girls I can be completely stupid and comfortable with.

- Being given chocolates by students (but of course, I have to conceal my excitement upon the feel of chocolates on my hands).

- The sweetest bouquet of roses from two students who also gave me chocolates last year along with a note that says Happy World Teachers Day. They better stop it or else I will think that I really must have done something right in this teaching stint after all. Haha.

- Supermoon lighting the dawn skies for me and my mom during one of our regular walks.

- Popcorn, I Am Number 4, Nj’s warm hands holding my cold hands and two great cinema seats. Date Sundays we just gotta love.

- Finally finding a dressmaker who will do my graduation dress.

- A one-on-one with a student whom I wish had been a friend of mine way back college.

- Making up for a heavy dinner with Krong, Yen and Suey by walking from Damosa to Bajada to Cabaguio to Dacudao to Obrero.  But then again, this one ended with a long conversation over beer.

- Controlled thrift shopping. Good thing I don’t need a rehab for this. Take a look at the only thing I scored this month.

Quilted bag, thrifted. Like I said, I have a PhD in thrift shopping.

 - My pink piggy LED flashlight and lavender scented sachets (perfect for the closet) from Handyman. Don’t we just love Handyman?

- TVDS1 down. I didn’t understand what this Damon fuss was all about until I finally gave in to watching the series. And I couldn’t agree more with my students. Damon does make everybody swoon.

- Treating out Melanie and Judymae to a no-brainer (the kids needed to unwind). I made them choose between Justin Bieber and Gerald Anderson but they begged to watch the latter due to fear of being ridiculed and disowned by the society.

- Short visit-small talk with Maiq and Ate Mitchiko. I like visiting OR and the intelligent conversations I have with the people over there.

- The most hilarious thing I heard about myself: I am in a secret relationship with a colleague and we will have to leave the institution to be together in real life. Where the hell did that come from? Some people are not just born paranoid; they make really creative and detached-from-reality stories, too.

- 27 hours wide awake

- Out of the blue texts from Cheese. Thanks to technology, our psychic sisterhood lives on, whenever, wherever. (Should I get a perm? Where can I find the dress shop? Let’s have a remote dinner? Hahaha.)

- A ring that matches Nj’s. And his unromantic manner of giving me the ring. Which makes it romantic, given that the guy doesn’t like wearing rings.

- Brisk walking twice around Buhangin Memorial Park. Because jogging in front of people visiting graves does not seem appropriate. And my dad might haunt us for being inappropriate.

- Whistles for the family. As in literal whistles. In case of emergency. So we can signify our existence if we get trapped in a building after an earthquake. Thank you mom for being overly concerned about our welfare.

- Trying to check papers with Andi, Dennis, and Maam Tess in the conference room but ending up head banging and dancing instead. How crazy can teachers get? You have no idea. After dinner at Bigby’s, we rode bump cars, had coffee, watched Sucker Punch, held a debriefing session in the car park after watching such movie, continued the session at MTS, talked about our love lives or the lack/failure thereof, and decided to go home by 1am.

- A heartfelt compliment from Cheese about a certain blog entry. That made my day.

- A student telling me that he didn’t regret being in my class. And thanking me for all the learning.

Awkward and awesome. March had to be something else. And if for teaching alone, I know I would be staying in the academe. 


P.S. 
I have to credit my brother Arsen for the clay figures. I'll show you some of his artwork soon.