They had another blockmate named Corbin. At this point Levi, Riley, and I had formed a pretty close friend group and hung out outside of class. They’d been referencing this blockmate Corbin, and kept saying things like, “You can sit in our block’s class… if you can get Corbin to talk to you”, and, “I bet even you couldn’t get Corbin to talk to you”. Upon asking why, they explained that Corbin came from an all-boys school and, like a real life Rajesh Koothrappali, could not for the life of him speak to women. I don’t think he drank much, but according to them he would only force himself to talk to women professors. 

I never undertook the challenge, although I was dying to. There weren’t any organic moments that I could possibly speak to him, and in the land of opportunity, I seize, I do not create. 

Levi unknowingly created it for me.

It was the middle of the term and they were in the throes of a stressful project, and I was sitting by Riley as he was faced with wall after wall of gray screens. His eyes were red and bleary, and his hair was messy from the amount of stressed pulling. Once he completed his part, he despaired because Levi was supposed to get the USB to do the next part, but had been unavoidably detained at the dorms. I offered to hand it off to Levi for him and he readily agreed.

Levi came by and took the USB, but instead of grumpily heading off, he sat down beside me and let out a long, tired sigh. He mentioned that he was hungry, and I offered the rest of my Hungarian sausage from lunch. It looked pretty sad because of the mess of ketchup and mustard I had put on it, plus, it was half eaten. But he ate it so fast and looked so grateful, I’m glad I hadn’t been too squeamish to offer it. He even looked me sincerely in the eye and said “You’ll make someone a good wife one day.”

To which I replied, “Wow, how tired are you?”

Then he looked over on the other side of the round chairs and started talking to Corbin, who I hadn’t seen was there. They talked a little of CS, and then Levi had to go. I was still waiting for someone, so I told Levi I’d stay. 

“Hey, take care of her,” Levi told Corbin, and left.

Corbin looked frightened out of his wits. He bobbed his head and averted his gaze, working on his project.

“That looks cool!” I said enthusiastically. “Can I watch?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“What does it do?” I asked.

He ran the program. “It’s a game. It’s just a basic game with platforms. Kind of like Mario.” He showed me the controls. “See when you press the left arrow key, he goes left.” The character shot to the right. “And when you press right, he goes right.” The character shot to the left. “And when you press up, he jumps. But…” He pressed the down arrow key and the character jumped. He sighed. “I don’t really know what’s wrong.” 

He eventually put away the project and we got to talking about other things. I ended up telling him that I grew up in Mindanao and mentioned the farms and farmland.

“Being a farmer sounds like the dream,” he sighed, “Just wake up and eat a fruit. Want milk? Bam! A cow. Clothes? Get some sheep. The life.”

We eventually parted ways but it had gone so well that I half wondered if the rumors were true.

When I saw Corbin again, he was sitting with his blockmates in the Gonzaga Cafeteria. He had his bag conveniently on the seat between him and his girl blockmate. I was just there to ask for Filipino notes from Lucas and Riley, and I could see that Corbin had his head down, so I didn’t say hello. I did eavesdrop on their blockmate attempting to talk to him.

“Have you eaten breakfast yet?” she asked him directly.

He glanced around wildly and then hyperfocused on his laptop. He then turned to Riley and said, “Have you eaten breakfast? I haven’t yet, but I’m not hungry.”

Then she said to him, “Did you finish your project?”

Again, he completely looked the other way, tapping halfheartedly at his laptop. Then, again to Riley, he said, “That project was so hard! I took all night to finish it.”

The exchange was hilarious, but I didn’t feel like laughing, just feigned obliviousness.

Corbin then raised his head a fraction and caught sight of me. His eyes lit up. “Debbie! Hi, do you have a place to sit? You can sit here!” He lifted his bag off the chair happily and started yammering away to me as I sat down, both bewildered and delighted.

I never had the opportunity to talk to Corbin once Levi switched to my course. Some semesters later, I did see him from the distance, holding hands with a girl. I sent him silent congratulations across the path for overcoming his own battle and finding someone who appreciated him for who he was.

End.

Bonus story: While writing this chapter down, I decided to scroll through our messages to refer to our first Messenger conversation. I was taking screenshots so I could find them easily, and my fat thumb slipped and hit voice call. I think a little part of me was pronounced dead on arrival. He was super cool about it and after my profuse apologizing, we never spoke again.

She was a sturdy, sun-kissed filipina, tall and muscular. Moana had nothing on her long brown curls. She taught Filipino, and she was indeed a credit to our race with that matriarchal personality that boomed throughout the small Kostka classroom and bowed every head. Woe betide anyone who wouldn’t give her her way!

And yet for all the imposing figure she cut, she was actually a hopeless romantic. She was in love with being loved, and she loved everything about love. Strangely enough, her relationship with her classes were almost completely parallel with her romantic relationships. When it was going well with her guy, we would have sunny Ma’am Fiona who made all the jokes and was generous with grading recitation points. When things weren’t so good in paradise, we would get stormy Ma’am Fiona and a pop quiz. When I say it was like reading the stars, it was more like reading how her love life was going, which was much less predictable.

I was classmates with Levi and Riley again by some stroke of luck. One day when my mind was wandering, they somehow drifted onto the topics of crushes and the feeling of kilig. 

(Note: “kilig” translates to “romantic excitement” but there’s no direct translation or way of explaining – you just have to feel it.)

I happened to be in a head-in-the-clouds state and didn’t realize until too late that Levi and Riley were goading Ma’am Fiona into asking me a question. I snapped back to reality.

“So, Ms. Suson,” Ma’am Fiona said, grinning widely at me. “Kelan mo unang naramdaman ang kilig?” (Translation: “When was the first time you felt kilig?”)

I felt the blood rush directly to my cheeks as Levi, Riley and the rest of the class stared at me, their evil grins permeating through the haze of embarrassment. 

“Well….. Uh……. Sinabi ko sa crush ko na gusto ko siya. Tapos…. Sinabi niya na gusto niya rin ako.” I made it out in broken Tagalog, under the amused gazes of Ma’am Fiona, Levi, Riley, and really, the whole classroom. (Translation: “When I told my crush I liked him… and he said he liked me back.”)

“Kayo pa rin ba?” Ma’am Fiona followed up, getting excited on my behalf. (Translation: “Are you still together?:)

“Hindi po, hindi kami naging…. kami,” I supplied, wanting to meld into my chair. (Translation: “No, we were never… an ‘us’”)

Everyone laughed at me as I shot death glares at Levi and Riley.

Suffice it to say that they teased me about it mercilessly for weeks.

I actually did well in this Filipino class, for all my ineptitude in my own mother tongue. I failed all the quizzes, but made up for it in recitation points. We had many readings, of which I understood maybe a word. We had a reading called “Suson Susong Suso” and it was about society’s perception of women with big bosoms. Something I didn’t realize when I showed Levi the title, proud that it had my last name on it. He never let it go when we finally read the reading and discovered what it was about. Don’t ask me for the details, I just know it was an essay because that was the only point I got right in a ten point quiz.

Our class with Ma’am Fiona was lively, for the most part. On good days, especially when she was all dressed up for a date later, we were quite rowdy and had many laughs with her. We couldn’t quite understand why her reviews on Ateneo Profs to Pick were so bad.

Until we met class B.

Class B was her second class, just a few hours after ours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. According to the rumors, a student had talked back to Ma’am Fiona on the first day of class and since then dragged his classmates into a semester of Fiona Tempest. She hated them. With a passion. 

We were reading the second novel of Janus Silang by Edgar Samar, who was another prof in Ateneo. We read until halfway, and Ma’am Fiona randomly dropped an optional 3 page paper assignment for extra points. We could do this over the weekend and submit it on Tuesday. I took this offer, because I needed all the points I could scrounge. Upon talking to a friend from Class B, apparently they had been required to write a 7 page paper on the same thing, with the same timeline, and it actually had weight on their grades. 

When we got our grades for our midterm orals (which I am proud to say I crushed), I saw my classmates got either an A, B+, or B. I was proud of us. Then out of curiosity, I checked Class B’s grades. They were a shocking range of C+ to D. The favoritism was strong, and I thank all my lucky stars, one for being there to read so we could navigate Ma’am Fiona, and two for setting me in favorable waters. Literally.

I cannot forget Ma’am Fiona, even if I’ve already conveniently forgotten everything she’s taught. My most striking memory was when she had us all stand up and wouldn’t let us sit down until we had recited or answered one of her questions. I don’t remember what the question was, neither then nor now, but for some reason I hit upon the answer just by screaming out, “Sunod-sunod!” Absolutely no one knew what the question was that was just answered. But that’s college for you.

I heard Ma’am Fiona broke up with her guy halfway through the following semester. Her classes had sunny Fiona for the first part and stormy Fiona for the rest. But nothing could beat her absolute contempt of Class B, whose impudence couldn’t even be overlooked by a happy love life.

End.

Now, I loved writing fiction just as much as I liked making art. I think I liked it even more than making art, but graphic design was the more strategic career choice. So this was my chance to slot my passion for writing into my strategy.

I consulted with our chair, Sir Conrad, and he approved me for taking a CW minor.

I actually had a lot of classes under Sir Conrad, who was also a Creative Writing professor. He was the youngest chair in the Fine Arts Department’s history, and despite his youth he was ornery, to-the-point, and aloof. He was handsome in a brooding, classic Filipino way. For reasons unknown to the general populace, he walked with a limp and a cane. It just added to his mysterious, intimidating air, making him popular figure amongst a large group of coeds. 

As a professor he was known to have some favoritism, but I didn’t see it. He would have us send him our homework and then we would give feedback on another classmates’ work, so at the end of the day we would have feedback from both him and our classmates. Then we would discuss each other’s stories during class time. My most memorable shining moment was when we were discussing a story I wrote about a man going mad after enduring the Marshmallow Test for an excruciatingly long period of time.

Read: The Marshmallow

“I don’t even know where to begin talking about this one,” he said, “Because it’s far beyond the scope of what we’re discussing now. I’m supposed to be teaching the basics of constructing a story.” Then he asked, “What kinds of stories do you read?”

“Lord of the Rings, Jane Austen, Sherlock Holmes…”

He picked his laptop up and shook it upside down. “Where is the Lord of the Rings here??”

It was my proudest moment. Mainly because it was one of the only proud moments. I remained largely unspectacular for the rest of the course.

I remember towards the end of my senior year, I went in for consultation and asked if he had any feedback for one of my stories. In the past years, he would always receive our stories and then send them back to us for some unknown reason, and I always assumed it was so he knew which ones he had reviewed already. And then he would give feedback in class. But for this particular one, we weren’t going to meet in class for feedback so I went to ask for mine.

“Didn’t I send it to you already?” he asked.

“You sent me back my story,” I said.

“Can I see?”

I showed him the email.

“Did you download it?” he asked.

I downloaded it. And for the first time I saw that he had actually put comments on the document, only visible when you opened it on Microsoft Word. My mind was completely and utterly blown and I stared at it for quite a while.

“Wait, sir,” I stuttered, “You mean to say every time you sent us back our stories, you had comments written on the margins?”

“Yeah, of cour–.” He stopped abruptly and looked at me in horror. “You mean to say you haven’t seen a word of my feedback until NOW?” I could see him thinking back to how long I had been taking classes with him – almost three years. “Until NOW?”

I felt my face turn red with embarrassment as I apologized profusely as he questioned his life choices as a professor. He mournfully relayed this to my thesis professor as she was passing through, and she gave me a look of sad resignation. 

That aside, we had an okay relationship, although he is the type of person I would keep at arm’s length.

Many stories later, we finally came to the end of our years at Ateneo and we were graduating students. They held graduation ceremonies for minors about a week before the big Commencement. On the day of the graduation for CW minors, Sir Conrad sent a message to our email thread saying that he had wine and cheese in one of the classrooms for us to come and hang out before the ceremony.

I wasn’t going to go, but I bumped into a couple of classmates who were on their way there. One of them was Ranch, a psychology major, and Tyler, a theater major. Ranch had coerced Tyler into accompanying him to the wine & cheese invite and he begged me to go until I agreed.

“Good, if it was just the two of us it would be weird, but with three of us it’ll be fine!” he crowed triumphantly.

We filed into the classroom where Sir Conrad was sitting at the table with another professor, a Dutchman called Sir Vanderberg. I had never taken him, but we knew of him. I specifically knew him because he was friends with my history professor.

As excited as he was to be there, the moment we sat down Ranch became a human popsicle, frozen to his seat with a stupid smile plastered on his face. Tyler and I, natural introverts especially in unfamiliar company, exchanged looks and then with inward sighs, took it upon ourselves to make conversation.

“I heard you liked to bike,” I told Sir Vanderberg. 

He looked at me bemusedly. “I do. How did you know?”

“Sir Heron is my history professor! He likes to talk about biking with you.”

“I didn’t know he talked about me in his class,” Vanderberg laughed.

“Yeah, he talks about his girlfriend a lot too.”

“Ahh,” he said slowly, his eyes glinting with humor. Then he, a gay man, turned to Conrad and mused, “I never talk about my girlfriend in class.”

Then Sir Conrad said something redacted and they cracked up as the three of us shyly looked at the table, the ceiling, anywhere but at each other.

We made some more small talk until we came to the topic of graduating and turning onto the next chapter. Sir Vanderberg began talking about his first job working as a delivery boy at a baker back in Amsterdam. 

“Was it the kind of bakery where you can customize your bread?” Tyler asked.

“Yes, you could ask for a certain kind of flour or something and they would bake it on the spot.”

Ranch finally spoke. Bear in mind that for the half an hour we had been there he hadn’t yet spoken a word except to numbly nod or smile awkwardly. This was finally his moment, his time to get a word in.

“Did you ever-,” Ranch started, and then cleared his throat as Sirs Conrad and Vanderberg looked at him. “Did you ever get a request… for bread-free bread?” 

A pin-drop silence fell across the table.

Slowly, Vanderberg exchanged looks with Conrad, who shrugged.

As is usual in times like these, a wave of mirth hit me and I stared in concentration at the paper cup of wine in front of me as my lips trembled and I tried not to laugh. 

“Bread-free bread?” Vanderberg finally repeated.

I snapped and broke into laughter as Ranch tried to save himself.

“No, I mean! I mean! Like you know how some people ask for gluten-free bread? And I was thinking, maybe there was a special something, like for people with allergies, like bread-free bread…” 

Vanderberg stopped him from digging the hole any deeper. “No, there was no–” He paused for a small chuckle. “–bread-free bread.”

I barely remember the rest of the time we spent there, I was too busy trying not to burst into laughter. I don’t know what it is about being nervous and laughter and why they seem to come hand-in-hand. 

We thanked them for the wine and cheese, and then headed to the auditorium. A few words of impartation, and then it was finally over. With a strange sense of completion and accomplishment, I walked across the stage and accepted my minor’s diploma. It was held on a work day so none of my family could make it, and the only one there for me was Angelo, my person. I sent him a picture of my diploma, saying, “And they spelled my name right too!” in jest to all the times in my life my name had been spelled wrong.

He sent back: Debarah :(

I paused.

Did a double-take.

They spelled my name wrong. 

DEBARAH.

End.

It happened to be the semester that I was under a legendary human being - not a Legendary Prof, but a legendary human being. His name was Ambeth Ocampo. If you go to any Filipino bookstore, you’ll find a book written by him, more often than not on Jose Rizal. His most popular book was Rizal Without the Overcoat. Sir Ocampo was better known in my school for his eccentric lectures as a History professor. I was aiming to take him when I was a junior, but it was the one semester that he was a professor in Japan. Later I realized that he jumped schools quite often. Sir Ocampo was a man of considerable girth, and always dressed himself with a floral button-up shirt that stood out like a tropical garden. He was always smiling and kept his silver hair at the same length no matter what. Like most of my professors, he was almost like a cartoon character.

I had him in my sophomore year for a major, a class on Philippine Design. It was a three hour class every Wednesday from 5-8pm, and he talked about Philippine Design and about Spanish and American influence. He made us go all around the museums, like the National Museum, Intramuros, and Las Casas Manila. 

My friend Levi from Filipino had shifted to my course and he was my classmate in this class. He was one of those people constantly grumbling and complaining to express his contentment in life. His uncle was a private collector of old Spanish furnishings and paintings of that time. The entire second floor of their house looked like it belonged in Las Casas, but it was a much better experience as the members of the family used the furnishings on a daily basis. They had wicker chairs that served as birthing chairs and wine cupboards that were genuinely vintage. Everything was varnished within an inch of their lives. With that vast collection, Levi’s uncle was scornful of Las Casas, which was not up to his standards. As we went through this “disgrace”, looking at the old replicas and restorations of the old Spanish houses, Levi kept up a lively commentary on how miserable he was.

“Why do we have to go all the way to Manila just to see this… this… what is this?” He squinted and peered closer at the glass-encased depiction of the crucifixion. “Wait. I own this!”

Indeed, the sculpture was on loan from Levi’s uncle, much to Levi’s annoyance and my amusement.

One day I went to a talk by Sir Ocampo, which was attended by many students from multiple colleges. For the first time I had a taste of the Legendary Prof that he was. In his pursuit of knowledge about Rizal and Rizal’s cronies, Ambeth Ocampo pushed every boundary in and out of the law. He once scared a secretary into letting him into a restricted area because he wanted to read something there. He told her that her boss had sent him and told her to call said boss in his sternest voice until she caved and just let him in. In another story, he found what he truly believed to be the painter Juan Luna’s house, and, because another family lived there, he slipped in before the automatic gate closed and locked him out. But Ambeth is one of the most delightful people I know and he charmed everyone who caught him with his knowledge and his extreme thirst for learning.

Under Ambeth, I was a humble candle trying to catch something from the morning star itself. He always smiled at me when he saw me, in a way where it looked like he remembered me, and not in the way where he was smiling just in case I was his student. I adored him. The Shakey’s pizza he ordered us on our last day of class just confirmed my adoration.

One day, I had the privilege of walking with him from our classroom in Gonzaga to Leong. We were both being picked up there. I walked alongside him in silence, squeezing my brain to think of something smart to say. Anything. Anything at all. Ask him questions about Jose Rizal. Start a discussion on Juan Luna’s paintings. Create some form of intellectual dialogue. I took a deep breath and said the first thing that came to mind:

“Sir, you know this week I forgot to bring pants to my dorm, so all I have to wear is shorts.”

End.

Levi stood at least half a head taller than everyone in the class. He was our palest boy, obviously a half, so he stood out like a sore thumb and was proclaimed beadle on the spot. No one could pronounce his last name — the Stelljes providing a real challenge — although they gave a valiant effort. At first glance, Levi was sarcastic, insensitive, and apathetic. He complained when he was annoyed, he complained when he was happy. I’d seen him throw a mini fit when his pages weren’t turning right. But he had this charm to him that really couldn’t be denied. He was undoubtedly handsome, dashingly so, with just the right amount of aloofness that had most girls vying for his attention. He spoke Dutch fluently, and although he normally used it for swearing and complaining, it certainly didn’t detract from his inexplicable magnetism. But the king of his looks, at least for me, was his hair. I honestly cannot explain how fluffy and bouncy his hair looked. Levi will always be Levi, but I was in love with his hair. In fact, I told my friend Jules directly after that there was someone in my class whose hair was the best thing ever. I didn’t think we would get to know each other, but it was comforting to know such hair existed. 

As luck would have it, he ended up being my one and only seatmate when we were sat alphabetically. I was the very end of the list, as usual. Unless there was a Tan or a Sy somewhere there, I would always be the last in the list. As I was taking my notebook and highlighters out in preparation, Levi turned to me and said, “Guess I’ll be asking you for help a lot.”

To which I responded, “I know just about as much of the language as you do.”

“Well, we’re screwed.”

I didn’t expect that Levi would be so chatty, and actually, knowing him as well as I do now, I still wouldn’t expect it of him. But he seemed content building our seatmate relationship. He soon learned that I had about the thickest skin on earth and pulled out all the stops in bullying me. It’s funny to think that I met him when I was 16 and he was 17 - we were little more than babies. 

Through him I got to meet Riley, his blockmate in CS, and Carlo, his classmate from Ateneo high. We formed a group of our own, and always chose each other for partners or group works. I don’t really know how we had so much time to just talk about random things. I’m sure we had class a majority of our friendship together.

Seatmate relationships are usually just that; confined to the space of the one class you go to. Sure we had some group projects and met up sometimes outside of class, but that was usually as far as it went. Seatmate relationships have an expiration date, and when the semester ends, it’s time to part ways.

I knew that my seatmate relationship had become a real friendship when I had to stay back to talk to sir Pandan one time. Everyone had left the classroom. I finished up my talk with sir Pandan and went out to see Levi and Riley waiting outside for me, chatting to each other and walking in time with me like it was so normal for us to leave together. I bumped into Levi the most outside of class, but I ended up also having a fun friendship with Riley.

Riley Lan was adorable, with his small, slanted eyes and his ready laugh. He was such a good buddy to have. He was my hype man, my devil’s advocate, and the one who was nicer to me than Levi. After class when Levi would have somewhere to go, we’d sometimes go around and find fun things to do around the campus. There was a free Build-Your-Own-Magnum stand once out in Zen Garden, and we were standing in line to get ours. Riley came up with an idea, saying I could add whatever outrageous toppings I wanted to his Magnum, but if he ate it all then he’d get to have mine. I readily agreed and he was over the moon that he was getting two Magnums that day. We chose all the toppings, but since they had run out of the more over-the-top ones, we brought it over to Gonzaga and doused it liberally with soy sauce. He ate it all and happily accepted mine.

We also explored a new exhibit at the Old Rizal Library once, and danced crazily in an empty room before we realized there were CCTVs everywhere. We found an exhibit that had something to do with the lights reflecting off water, and I located where the water was. Against my misgivings, Riley decided to touch the water to make sure it was real. As his fingertip broke the water, a stunningly loud THUD sounded, making me leap back, the fear of the Old Lib gods in me. Needless to say I nearly crashed into a couple who just wanted the serenity of the room.

Riley was always nice to me, yes. He continued this way for most of the semester, talking to me like a normal human being while Levi bullied me mercilessly. Then somewhere in the middle of it, I realized that Riley was slowly taking Levi’s side.

“Hey,” I said, “You were supposed to be on my side.”

“Well,” he replied thoughtfully, “I tend to side with whoever is winning.”

Carlo was the one I spent the least amount of time with. He was deep in the throes of his first love, and she consumed most of his free time. But he was kind and sweet, and easily someone who would be mortified if he accidentally hurt you in any way.

Those days were the good days. We hung out when when we were classmates again in Ma’am Fiona’s class, and we didn’t really stop even when we were all in different classes. We watched every required Filipino film together. We studied for orals together. We attended forums and talks together for extra points. I don’t think I would have enjoyed anything related to Filipino if it wasn’t for those guys. And my favorite part about it was that we were actual friends, even afterwards.

But when the Filipino classes were over, we did have to say goodbye to some extent. There wasn’t really any need for our paths to cross again. Levi moved to my course and joined my block, so I still got to see him there. Riley, I still got to see around campus and we maintained the same fondness we had for each other. I adopted a tree once because he asked me to. Carlo I saw even less of, but every time we did see each other, it was like nothing had changed.

Writing this now, I do feel nostalgic for the time I was a student. I met so many interesting people and formed friendships with them. Looking back at our tight-knit group, I know I wouldn’t change it for the world. I wish all three of them happiness.

End.

I enjoyed most of the tasks I was asked to do, especially because it meant that I could see offices I never would have seen otherwise. And I got to meet staff who don’t regularly interact with the students. As for the tasks, they were usually mundane and tedious. I can clearly remember sewing the little blue ribbons onto the Virgin Mary broaches that they gave out on October, the month of the Holy Rosary. I also single handedly delivered two documents, one to the Ateneo Grade School and one to the Ateneo High School, which were on both ends of the campus. I sharpened bundle after bundle of Number 2 Monggol pencils for ACET takers. And I also cut circles and circles out of stenciled paper, the supervisor asking me concernedly, “Do you know how to use a scissor?” I also did a little work in the finance department, punching holes in paper. And that is where I met Christopher Ku. 

I was a freshman at the time, and he was a sophomore. He was shy, with a large forehead, curly hair cut short, and big eyes. He wore a blue jacket everywhere he went. 

He was the one punching holes into papers when I arrived, binding them together with a little clasp. Our supervisor was extremely busy, so she sat me down and left me alone. I was going to sit in silence, but my natural personality took over when I reached my boring point.

“Are you doing service hours?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “You?”

“Yeah. But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do because Ma’am Aila is busy.”

“I think you’ll be taking over my job,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Punching holes.”

“It looks…”

“Boring. I know. I’ve been at it for about an hour?”

“I see my future,” I said bleakly, surprising a laugh out of him. “I’m Deb, what’s your name?”

“Chris.” He kept his papers still with his right hand and held out his left for a handshake. Disoriented, I shook it feebly. “What year are you?”

“Freshman.”

“I’m a sophomore. How do you like Ateneo so far?”

“It’s fun. Big. I have to walk.” I tacked the last bit on as my biggest bane of my beloved campus. It seemed to amuse him greatly. 

When his time was up, he got up to leave and I did take over his job. I finished in an hour and signed the sheet, taking note of his name. Christopher Ku. I found him on Facebook and added him. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again, though.

As it turned out, I saw him everywhere. I’d see him every other day, no matter where I was. I think I saw him every day for a solid week once, just passing by each other randomly in different areas of the campus. Having lunch in ISO? He was there getting readings. Going to Kostka for Filipino class? There was Christopher Ku in Zen Garden. Walking up the staircase in Sec A? I’m not even joking, even if I was on the second floor and he was outside on the path, we still waved at each other through the panes of glass. The real clincher was when I was in Bellarmine on a Friday at 5pm to get a reading and saw him, and then the following Friday I was in the Blue Eagle Gym to meet Nicholas at 5pm. And lo and behold, it was Christopher Ku!

He gave me a sheepish look to match my indignant one. “I know, I know,” he began.

“You’re following me!”

He cracked up in his quiet way. “I promise I’m not!”

He was, as usual, decked out in his blue jacket, which I learned was his uniform. I started to theorize that Christopher Ku, whose name I said in full because of how it rolled off the tongue, was actually a video game character who spawned in real life.

Hear me out.

He just appears out of nowhere. Whenever he decides to enter the game, he just re-emerges where he left off last. He always wears the same thing, his chosen blue jacket and blue jeans. His hair never changes. Christopher Ku looked exactly the same from when I met him to when I last saw him. Christopher Ku was a video game character.

He even fit in so badly with the players in reality. We got along fairly well when we had to talk. But one day I saw him and tried to introduce him to Veronica and Ruth. He looked absolutely terrified and nearly shrank completely into his jacket. But he couldn’t Leave Game just yet, although despite my efforts, he could barely squeak out a hello to Veronica. Ruth got farther with talking to him but he looked like he just wanted to slowly disappear from existence without any of us knowing he had ever been there at all. 

The last time I bumped into Christopher Ku, it was actually when I was a junior and he was graduating. In a poetic circle of solidarity, I happened to be doing my favorite activity for service hours, that is, to help out with handing out diplomas during graduation. The paper you get on stage is a blank piece of A4 tied up with a ribbon. The real diploma is gigantic, more like a poster than a piece of paper. I handed them out with my friend Zac every year. Decked out in white polo shirts and black slacks, we would march over to our assigned rooms and have each graduating student check to see if their names were right and then give them a hearty congratulations. By a stroke of luck, we were in the room giving out the diplomas for students K-M. When Christopher Ku saw me, he just started laughing. I held it out, had him check his name, and then rolled it up, putting it in its canister.

I was confused when I saw him, because his leg was in a cast and he was wearing crutches. I suppose there’s fall damage in this game of life. I messaged him about it later on and he said he had torn his ACL in a Jump Yard level, a trampoline park that was all the rage. It just amuses me to imagine Christopher Ku, who basically melted into the benches when I introduced him to my friends, leaping around in a trampoline park. 

End.

Our professor for ES Lab was the complete opposite of our Lecture professor. He was tall, dashing, and the crush of the ES Department. Former, present, and future students all vowed that he was most definitely filipino Flynn Rider. His demeanor was gentle and calm, and his voice deep. I don’t remember much of the lessons he gave but it was quite a stress-free environment.

Our biggest and longest project for ES Lab was taking care of our plant baby. I chose Okra because I thought it might be the sturdiest of the plants. I didn’t have much confidence in its lifespan, as my mother has something of a brown thumb. Many a times I have caught her faithfully watering her rosemary plants that were quite ready for seasoning - dried to sticks. And I highly suspected I had inherited those genes. I bought the okra, named it Georgillian on the request of one of my friends from Filipino class, and hoped for the best.

I am happy to say that for the first few weeks, Georgillian thrived. She was kept with all the other plants on the rooftop of Sec C, and I watered her every day and took pictures faithfully to log it at the end of the semester. One day, I went up and found her bearing a little baby okra – her first fruits. I was so proud.

Georgillian happened in the days before the Calendar Shift, when Christmas break happened in the middle of the second semester. During the break I took her home and cared for her there. Her baby turned out to be a dwarf that shriveled before I realized it was supposed to be picked. Perhaps that premature abortion took its toll on her because after the child died, Georgillian slowly began to fade. I took her child and took its seeds out, planting it in the soil around her. When she truly withered away, I took her out and laid her to rest. Soon after, small sprouts appeared. I truly marvel at how life can come from death, and watered and mothered these sprouts faithfully.

School started again, and I took her children back. By this time, their companions on the rooftop, once bright green, glowing jewels of the earth, now shared the same look and ultimately the same fate as Georgillian. 

I got busy and aside from watering Georgillian’s babies, I neglected to take photos of them. When the time drew closer for me to give my report on Georgillian, I had to frantically take photos of the pot of sprouts.

The sprouts. I stood over these sprouts looking at them with consternation. Why, they looked exactly the same as the first week I planted them! It was too late to do anything about that - I took pictures and, I’m ashamed to say, Photoshopped them. There were about five sprouts, so I edited the photos to have less sprouts at the start, and then gradually gain sprouts later on.

Week 6: Sprouts are fine.

Week 7: Nothing to note.

Week 8: Sprouts are fine. Found bug.

And so on.

I finished up my report, grabbed Georgillian’s babies, and ran to the classroom, where Flynn was checking our plants and collecting our reports. He took my papers and peered into my pot of sprouts.

“What is this supposed to be?” he asked.

“Sir, I don’t know what happened,” I told him. “My okra died but I planted its seeds and they started growing but then they suddenly stopped. I watered them every day and did everything I could but they’re just the same as before!”

We stared at my five buds of green.

“Those,” he said finally, shuffling the papers into the deck. “Are weeds.”

End.

“You with the blue hair. You with the pink shirt. No, not you pink shirt. The other girl in the pink shirt. No, not you. Am I looking at you? I’m looking at her!”

Towards the end, of course, he ran out of boys and of groups divisible by four. I was wearing a plain gray jacket which is probably why I was in a group of three girls (me, in a gray jacket, them in white shirts). 

Father James did everything angrily. He walked angrily, lectured angrily, and texted angrily in all caps. Every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:15am he would march in, beginning his lecture from when he entered the door, normally starting it out by ranting about something. He was especially fond of hounding the English department.

“You young people do not know how to write!” he would rumble from the front. “These papers I read - bah!” He went on. “I went to the English Department and I told them that they should teach their students how to write proper papers. They told me that they did!” His eyes widened in disbelief at this ludicrous statement. “So I told them, either they are lying, or the students are!”

He repeated this story around three times in the semester I had him.

Father James stayed at the Jesuit housing facilities, and it was rumored that he had single handedly planted every tree in our SOM Forest. The only time I saw him close to crying with frustration and indignation was when he recounted a day when all the faculty, staff, and students were given a day off and the trees withered a little from lack of watering. He himself was known to get up every day at 3am to water his plants. I’m sure he has his own set of plants that he waters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he watered every growing thing on campus. A story circulated about a frightening priest that appeared out of nowhere with a watering can in hand, scaring the wits out of sleep-deprived students still working on projects at 3am. Everyone who took him knew exactly who it was.

Father James did cut quite an imposing figure. He was on the round side, with sparse gray hair that he kept perfectly combed over his balding head. His eyes were perpetually judging and his brow was always furrowed with the weight of other people’s problems. It was his joy to make every student he called out cry. He had a requirement that we should read the newspaper before every session, and would randomly call out students on random days just to check if we had done it. Sometimes, he would be lecturing and he would drop a word like “deluge” or “saturate” and then he would call someone out to explain the word. If they couldn’t, he’d either call them stupid in a roundabout way, or blame the English department for their inadequacies. Every time he called someone up or out, we would learn something new about these random strangers in our class. 

“And so Zarathustra was saying… you there. You in the black jacket. Third row. Do you get enough sleep at night?”

The student looked up in fright. “Sir?”

“Do you have problems sleeping?” Father James growled. “Do you have sleeping problems?”

“I have sleep apnea, sir,” in a low voice.

“What? Speak up!”

“I have sleep apnea, sir!”

“Ah. I noticed that you keep falling asleep in my class. Do you have to wear one of those head contraptions for your sleep apnea?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s good. My friend has to wear something for his sleep apnea. Okay, I was just wondering why you kept falling asleep. Anyway, Zarathustra…”

And so now everyone knew that black jacket, third row had sleep apnea.

Despite not wanting to know our names, Father James had strict policies about absent students. They had to write a paper on the lecture that they missed. Which meant if one of our groupmates were absent, the present ones would have to take adequate notes to help their comrade. In addition to this, every Tuesday we had to submit a paper written by everyone in the group, and attach to it a selfie of us all together. We would get minus points if someone wasn’t in the pictures, so every Monday before the assigned person would print, we would get together for a couple of minutes, throw around some of our philosophy readings and highlighters, and take a happy selfie. Everything we actually discussed was online.

From our papers, Father James would read our names to take the attendance and see who was missing. One day he lingered on a name; it was the name of someone near the front row, called Nathan Nuñez.

“Are you related by any chance to Peter Nuñez?” Father James asked.

“Yes sir, he’s my father,” Nathan replied.

“I knew him before. He was attending this Jesuit summit that I was also attending.” He paused, re-living the memory. “He left quite abruptly.” Another pause. “I suppose to have you.”

I choked and almost suffocated myself in a grand attempt to stifle my laughter. Everyone else was silent as the tomb as Nathan agreed awkwardly.

Needless to say, everyone who was under Father James lived in mortal fear of him. I, on the other hand, reveled in every class I had with him. His insights on Zarathustra, Foucault, and Arendt were rather refreshing. And although I can’t say I remember everything I learned from him and them, I know I was highly amused by everything. After the sheer luck of being put in the back, where not many people were called from, the trick was to wear the most drab things to class. He only called out people with brightly colored clothing because it was easier. Every time I had to recite, he had no follow-up questions, and I had a relatively easy time. Our finals were to make a short film about something we learned in class, using the principles of the philosophers. I wrote the one for our group, having each of us play a girl version of the three philosophers - Hannah (Arendt), Michelle (Foucault), and Nitch (Zarathustra/Nietzsche) - set in modern times.

On the day of the finals, we were required to watch the film before ours, and the film after ours. We were the first to show our film, and so we had some time to prepare and give Father James our files. I was the least scared of him, so my groupmates handed me the flashdrive (important detail: a USB 3.0) and I sauntered over to him. I’m not sure if it was his imposing character or my good humor that did it, but I suddenly found everything hilarious. He greeted me cordially; I had learned since the start of the semester that he was only angry in front of large groups of people and the English department. One-on-one he was actually quite nice. He accepted the flashdrive and attempted in putting it into his Mac.

One note about this flashdrive is that it was built compactly. It was one of those that was merely flat with no extra covering that comes with the normal flashdrives, the ones with the stoppers that tell you when it’s upside down. This flashdrive was conveniently marked with a piece of tape to tell you which side was the right side up. As Father James tried to insert it, I saw the piece of tape waving at me, but by what I can only describe as spiteful intent, the pieces wouldn’t fit. Father James then flipped it and stuck it in successfully - probably because the sensors were rubbing against plain plastic and not the important part of the flashdrive.

Again, everything was hilarious to me. I could feel peals of laughter surging up my chest and up my throat, almost like I was about to vomit hilarity. My lips were trembling as he demanded to know why his computer wasn’t reading it.

“I think it’s upside down, sir,” I supplied timidly.

“It wouldn’t even go in the other way around,” he explained.

“Let me just call the owner of the flashdrive,” I said evenly, then went back to my groupmates with a huge grin on my face as I called over Nikki, the owner.

She took one look at the tape-less side and said, “It’s upside down, sir.”

He took it back out and put it in the right side up. We watched as he took the file and dropped it swiftly into the trash.

It happened so suddenly that Nikki and I didn’t know what to do or say. I attempted but only got out, “Sir, I-” before the situation settled in on my crazed brain and I knew that if I made another sound it would just be laughter.

The realization of the deed dawned on him. “Oh no! What did I do?” He frantically reached for his trash to restore the file and I couldn’t live anymore. I did a 180 and went about five rows back, where I began chuckling into my hands.

Father James, I believe, will live forever. One of my mentors had him while he was in college, and I firmly believe that my children, should they go to Ateneo, will take him as well. He fully deserves his title of Terror Prof, and I loved every bit of the terrorizing, though purely as a spectator and not a victim.

End.