As some of you might remember, I went on a trip to Bohol last year. In lieu of a trite refrigerator magnet, I promised my friend Clare that I would do a travel write-up for her NGO’s website. Amidst the ruckus in both our lives, the essay got lost and then found and then delayed for almost a year. Not until recently did it resurface on my to-do list and finally after all that procrastination, I turned it in.
So if you have time, swing by their website. I am not coercing any of you to read the tedious yarn I wrote. I’m just putting in a word for the NGO. It’s called Youth Trip Philippines. If you’re looking to travel the country, this is a good place to start. Plus, they have a really pretty logo…Not that that has anything to do with anything.
Anyway, click on the logo to visit their site. It just might incite you to pack your bags and go somewhere.
So here’s an addendum to my previous entry. Again, something I fished out of the free flowing office spam. These are from my kindred the world over who had the cojones to inject hilarity in failure. If only for their courage (or strident idiocy depending on how you want to see it) I doff my hat to them.
**Note: The Beached Bear would like to take credit for forwarding the email out of which the above images have been derived. There…there…Satisfied?
Anyone who knows me well enough is aware of my aversion for mathematics. It was one of the necessary academic evils that as a student lured me into long bouts of procrastination which in turn compromised my grades. It was the only class I flunked in college and even before that I had fun playing guessing games on the math section of the collegiate entrance exam.
In retrospect, I believe this deep loathing was incited by this teacher I had in the first grade. I remember dreading one particular Tuesday we had to sit in her class. It was flash cards day and I found myself standing front and center gawking at a rectangular piece of cardboard with 8 x 6 printed in bold.
“Eight….times….six….equals?”
The menacing way she was looking at me didn’t help at all. My mind went blank. As I stared back I noticed that her eyebrows were separated by an unscrupulous furrow that never seem to leave her forehead. A generous coating of red lipstick covered her upturned mouth and beneath her lower lip perched a large mole I could only assume was a sensor capable of detecting even the slightest hint of mischief within a 30 kilometer radius. But what was really disturbing about her was her laugh. It was a shrill sort of cackle that if aimed correctly could pulverize a seven-year-old as it bounces off the walls. And at that precise moment I knew I was about to get riddled by it.
“Eight…times….six…equals?”
“Ano?!! Sagot!”
“Uhmmm…..”
“Ano ba yan!! Ang tagal!!”
Mind you, this was the only time in my life I wished I could grow enough fingers to get me through that damn multiplication table. There was no swallowing the lump in my throat and the answer still hasn’t dawned on me so I whimpered, “Forty…two?”
I wanted to die.
“ANO?!!”
“Forty-two po….”
“Tanga!”
Then she started laughing.
The fact that I remember this with this much detail bothers me. By now, it would’ve become clear to anyone that that woman had no business teaching children but what can you do, really? What’s done is done. Although someday when I’m rich and powerful, she will be on my to-do list. What will become of her I leave entirely to your imagination.
Hmmm….What would Attila the Hun do?
