The passing cars glittered in the late afternoon light. People returning from work or shopping, Kuya Ralph and I typing away at McGregor. My parents fetched me a little early and it was turning into a perfect May evening, one of those days that turned everything to gold.

In our backyard, the leaves had become temporarily translucent, and the flowers along the verge seem bright enough to hurt the eye. From somewhere nearby came the faint scent of my mother's medalia. It smelled like a cross between sampaguita and Johnson's baby powder. After a week, all these will be replaced by the smoky avenue of V. Luna., but for the moment I feel like in a perfect Philippine postcard.

When I get back to Manila, work will begin to pile in earnest. I can foresee it now-the Guilder meetings, the publication of our broadsheet, the UP Sox semstarter, the OSA reports, the enlistment-everything that I had chose to offer myself to this coming year will begin. And I haven't even started mentioning my academics.

But it will be a whole new year altogether. Kuya and I will be having our own apartment and I am super excited. I have even drafted a short list of what I have to do when I get there:

1. Find the nearest church, grocery store and jeepney waiting shed. If I will live a very routinary life this sem, I will most probably take the church-school-home route. Although I doubt this will happen (emergency meetings, org activities and occasional parties will certainly come in), it's nice to start from the basics.
2. Purchase furniture, fixtures and appliances. This includes a TV, refrigerator, washing machine (with dryer), rice cooker, electric stove, twin beds, study tables and chairs as necessities. The couch and dining set will have to follow.
3. Study the transportation flow from and going to the apartment. Memorize the nearby street names and know the different routes going to UP.
4. Move in. That means Kuya and I will have to go through the familiar ritual of packing and unpacking all of our things, his coming from Laguna, and mine from my boarding house in G. Bernardo.

Four easy steps, right? Wrong! Most of the work will be physical, and given that I almost broke down last April from the sheer thought of having to move out of Yakal and into my Area 2 boarding house, moving in to our new apartment will be hard, terrible work. Which is why my mother is coming with me to Manila this Sunday, though I doubt she can handle the physical labor it would take its toll on her body.

I do hope everything will be alright. I may not be able to write a poem again, as I do now when I'm in our garden, so I will post this recent one here, still raw and untitled, but good enough for posting, I think. This is, after all, my blog.

I heard you

when you did not speak

and just stared at me with knowing, hurtful eyes. 

I wanted to dissolve

into molecules,

atoms even,

if it could give me an escape

from the whipping lashes of your mind.

You just stood there.

I remained still.

Silence still speaks volumes.