Assignment 1

There are two versions of this work. The first, unhindered version has 554 words, and the other, trying to follow the restrictions more closely has only 315 words.


http://eloquentbabbler.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-met-her-first-on-12th-of-june.html

I first met her on the 12th of June.
It was early still, but the morning promised a hot, sunny day. Perpetually early for most everything, I ambled up the UP CMC steps an hour or so early for class. Surprisingly, a girl was already standing there, reading notices where my class should have been. “J109 class under Sir Oliva will not meet tomorrow June 12, 2010” read one of the notices posted right above the door knob. She asked me with a smile if I was there for that same class. I said yes. We agreed that it was a pitiful waste of time to have come to class so early. She said she was from somewhere near Commonwealth when I asked her where she was from. I told her I came from somewhere further. Without saying much more, we parted ways.
I met her next on the 19th of June.
Like the week before, it was early still, and already the morning promised a hot, sunny day. An hour or so early for class, I ambled up the CMC steps. A girl sat there with an already familiar smile. I walked past her, checking out the room—no deterring note this time, just the overwhelming heat and smell of the empty room. I exit the room to the hall outside where she was waiting, fanning herself. We talk idly, shallowly, but we get along.
In class, the first activity is to choose a partner to get to know. I playfully lay my arm across her. She just smiles. We leave the room to talk—get to know each other. We babble about things, joking each other, mention random facts. She lost her dad when she was two. She’s twenty-six now, still the youngest of six siblings. She’s back in school, taking up what she really wants. She had already finished Interior Design, but had known for a while already that she preferred something more expressive; something literary, more artsy. She tells me she’s worked, though outside of the field she studied for. It was in these jobs that she realized she wanted to write, to express herself more. It was in her story of those jobs that I got to know her more.
She directed programs and handled students under the employ of the Center for Pop. After that, she worked for Vera Files, focusing on Voter Education. I guess it comes from her mother being a school teacher once that she sought to educate, and that she actually could. But she later on qualifies that it was in fact in her nature to care for others, sometimes more than herself. I found it strange that the youngest child would do that. I was the eldest and only child in our family for years, and thought that the job of caring for others came from being the Kuya. I realized that it was actually from being treated as the youngest part of the family that molded me more. We were here caring for others because we knew how to be cared for. We wanted to share it with others—to pay it forward.
Everyone has a story, it’s just that sometimes we need someone else’s story to introduce us to our own.
I met Bernadette Ilao first on the 12th of June.


http://eloquentbabbler.blogspot.com/2010/06/i-met-her-first-on-12th-of-june-2.html
I first met her on the 12th of June.
It was early still, but the morning promised a hot, sunny day. Perpetually early, I was an hour or so early for class. A girl sat there with a familiar smile. I walked past her, checking out the empty room only to be greeted by the overwhelming heat and smell of it. I return to her. We talk shallowly, but we get along.
In class, the first activity is to choose a partner to get to know. We leave the room to talk. She lost her dad when she was two. She’s twenty-six now, still the youngest of six siblings. She’s back in school, taking up what she really wants. She had already finished Interior Design, but had known for a while that she preferred something more expressive. She tells me she’s worked, though outside of the field she studied for. It was in these jobs that she realized she wanted to write, to express herself. It was in her story of those jobs that I got to know her more.
She directed programs and handled students for the Center for Pop. After that, she worked for Vera Files, focusing on Voter Education. I guess it comes from her mother being a school teacher once, that she sought to educate, and that she actually could. But she later on qualifies that it was in fact in her nature to care for others. I found it strange that the youngest child would do that. I was once the eldest and only child in our family and thought that the job of caring for others came from being the Kuya. I realized that it was actually from being treated as the youngest that molded me more. We were here caring for others because we knew how to be cared for. We wanted to share—to pay it forward.