At the Pen

Kim and I penned our thesis together in college. We did it in two weeks time, as in two weeks before graduation day. We both agreed that it was not something we are both proud of, for the result of our labor was something which our Dean described as "haphazardly done." But we never regretted the partnership. There are things better than erudition and intellectual scholarship -- we were then in the last stages of our teenage years.


Kim was the acoustics and percussion guy in our group. I remember him playing the guitar every after lunch -- either in the verandah of the study hall or in the Aula Magna (which was transformed in to a library). Speaking of library, he was also a voracious reader but I think it was more because of the required readings demanded of us at that time. He was also a very generous person. He would always offer his place in Pampanga when I needed to attend to some things in that area.

After college, we both took different directions. He went to Cebu. I headed for Makati to work for BPI. I saw him the year after that when I visited him in Talisay, Cebu. The second time we crossed path, I think, was two or three years ago. I visited my high school alma mater, Don Bosco Makati. He was teaching in the high school then.

We crossed path again last night at the Peninsula. We were at a classmate's wedding (Jimbo's). He played the guitar and I sang Huwag Kang Mangamba. After the wedding, again, we both took different directions. He headed back to Don Bosco Parañaque to finish his studies in theology, and hopefully, ordination in a year's time. I headed back to Loyola House to finish two papers in philosophy and a psychological report.


To my pen partner, till our roads meet again.