VERBA. VERBUM. VERBI. Or Kill Me.

Convivium… distinguere… animadvertens… aperuerit…

It’s not a chant. Those are Latin words playing in my mind over and over like an after-taste by some rancid food as I stepped out of the office at two in the morning. I have to stop or I might hit a weird combination of these words and accidentally cause the earth to open up and henceforth a company of incubi emerges from the cracks.

February 5, 2007. Oriental Gardens. I finally got home early. And it’s winter in the Philippines.

Pray it's not like this when I drive back to Baguio on the 24th.

The past days at work have been a killer as equally deadly deadlines fall on my table like rain. Throw in a pint of pressure and a boss who’s contemplating resignation if these pressures from Sri Lanka don’t get a stopper. The other Thursday, I worked 22 hours straight. I downed two bottles of Red Bull to keep me on my feet. Only to find out that on my 19th hour, though my body was well alive and my eyes wide open like I was on shabu, my brain could no longer distinguish between Latin, Tagalog, and English. I have to beg my boss to send me home. But prior to that begging (which I am not known at doing) I was thinking of my Baguio trip the weekend before. Me in my hotel room munching strawberries as I watch cable tv. Me at SM-Baguio on wifi overlooking a fog-swept landscape. Prior to that, me having sushi at second level terrace of SM-Baguio. Rollo and I at Café by the Ruins. The unrelenting flirtation at Nevada Square notwithstanding the threat of being shot by some frat guy. These happy thoughts kept me from hurling the computer out of the window unto a passing car down Ayala, 42 floors down below.

Nevada Square flirting!

An eyesore but I enjoyed it anyway. Again, I'm not complaining.

It's not Japan but I still had Uni.

Mac and Me and Wifi. And that scenery... ah, life.

Hindi ako nang-iinggit. Talagang akin lang ito.

Dressed to flirt.

Today, at last, we were done with our client’s demands. Without completing my daily minimum hours, I picked up my bag to go home. If a 16th Century theological treaties arrive from Sri Lanka, it would have to wait another 500 years to be edited. But before I could walk out of the office, my boss came back from a teleconference. The client has been happy with our work and is sending us new projects such as editing ancient musical scores in Latin, French and German. BUT! They are sending back some of the Latin documents we edited last December as the Greek phrases would have to be edited by us. That part of the news sent shivers down my spine. But then, boss said we would have to train somebody else to specialize on Greek. How reassuring…

Before he left, he went to my table. Seeing that I was killing time, he said “O, since wala kang ginagawa, simulan mo nang pag-aralan ito.” Then a Greek grammar book fell on my table.

I wanted to die right there and then! But instead, I breathe deep and slow, thinking of my next trip to Baguio this 24th for the Panagbenga Flower Festival with family and friends (what’s a flower festival without the fairies). That kept me from hurling a boss to a passing car down Ayala, 42 floors below.

Or, give and take two weeks, when those documents come back, it would be me hurling myself on the cars down Ayala, 42 floors below. Or I’d be happy to smack into a call-center agent or two with my dead and delectable body.

I'm not complaining. I just miss advertising.

Buddha would be sad to know that the tree under which he gained enlightenment was felled down to make an obesce likeness of him.

To make lions roar, kill a tree.

You know cassete tapes when you see lots of them. And they still exist, yes?