Apparently...

1) Pedestrian lanes don’t exist in the Philippines. I mean, they’re there sure but few “get” the idea. You see pedestrians crossing at random points. I suggest sitting down in a place where you have a good view of a busy street and observe. You’ll find out how adventurous some of my countrymen can get. And drivers seem to read ‘Rules” as “Suggestions”. I’ve tried crossing the street using a pedestrian lane and apparently, the vehicles won’t even slow down. It’s really lovely. There are two reasons I persist in crossing at (on? over? what gives?) pedestrian lanes: It’s the right thing to do and in case I get run over, my family may just have a good argument to present in court or whoever the authority is around here. And poor foreigners and tourists who think pedestrian lanes work in these islands. My German professor who got here in March nearly got run over today. He didn’t know about this thing. Poor guy was shocked.

2) My phone is in some sort of coma. Most of the time it won’t respond to my finger’s efforts. But, there are these rather grand times when it wakes up and discovers that, oooh, someone’s pressing my keypad and a letter “A” should be up on my LCD. Today’s a good day. My phone’s awake and I’ve been able to communicate. Although, it does space out a bit i.e. the space won’t work or it just dies on me only to vibrate on again. Is it acting up because it know that its replacement is on the way?

3) The typhoon that’s blazing(?) its way across Luzon swerved clear of Quezon City so classes weren’t suspended today. God is making it quite clear to me that there is no escape from my classes. I hear You Father, I hear You good.

4) A lot of people are asking me what I think about what’s going on in our islands. I hate to break it to you people but I’m not that “deep”. Honest. I haven’t really given the thing serious study and thought but so far, in all ignorance and annoyance, this is what I think: Okay, GMA. Nice going Madam. I’d want you to resign or something because I just can’t trust you anymore. But I don’t think our VP can hold that office just yet either. If you do get out of that office, there’s this entire mess of who’ll move into it. I think that move just destabilizes our nation more. And when you talk to any ordinary citizen trying to make ends meet in our poor country, they’re fed up of all this. So am I. So is everyone else, I think. You’d think this was all the buzz in our classrooms and dorm halls. But other than frowns, we let it drop. We want to move on. We’re too busy trying to figure out where to get the money to pay for our lodging, about our exams, about our tired parents who no longer care for this country and want their children to be out of it as soon as possible. Not a very critical and nationalistic opinion, I know. I regret to say that the possibility of me saying these words that my mother dreads to hear from me is getting smaller by the day: “Mom, I looove the Philippines. I believe it will get better. I want to stay here and serve our nation.” You may want to snob me the next time you see me. Trust me, I've suffered for my apparent lack of nationalism too much to bleed this time.

Note: I may be just a little too peeved.