ood evening class,” I flashed a wad of classcards as I strode into the classroom of my Omega section.
The college registrar has finally forwarded the students’ classcards to the professors. So I intended to play my favorite pastime again—driving law students anxiously frantic during recitation by shuffling their cards.
“Miss Ramona L. So, are you present?”
This semester seems to have taken on an acquired international flavor. I spied on more than a couple of students’ classcards with foreign sounding names on it--but they must be all Filipinos. You can’t even take the Bar exam unless you’re Filipino.
“Present, sir!” a lady stood up obviously in her later years, to go by her mostly already-white hair.
“How old are you, Miss Ramona?”
“I’m 21, sir, unless it’s relevant.”
The record for being my oldest law student is held by “Mommy Dionisia” from last semester’s Alpha Class. This lady seemed even older so I thought I better respect her preference to remain age-mysterious.
“No, of course not. It’s not relevant,” I quickly retreated, “besides, some things are easier inferred from evident clues—a skillset, by the way, that I hope to develop in all of you, too,” I set up my guessing game.
“For example, I’m guessing, Miss Ramona, that either your father, grandfather or someone else in the male lineage of your family is named Ramon,” I said, with a wink-wink to show off my inferential skills.
“Actually, there’s nobody named Ramon in my family, sir,” the woman replied, “but there’s a very interesting story behind that.”
“Well, this a three-unit subject meeting twice a week, so we do have an hour and half,” I encouraged her.
“My mother is Filipina-Chinese, her maiden surname is Lee. My father is Korean who sought refuge here in the Philippines when the Korean war broke out in 1950, it’s from him I got my maiden surname So,” she began to narrate.
“Anyway, my father is not a native Tagalog speaker but learned the language in due time, except he just really couldn’t make peace with letter ‘L’ like most Korean and Japanese. My mother, on the other hand was already Filipina from birth and like most Fil-Chi had no issues with the letter ‘L’. As she went into labor her last conversation with my father was about what name to give me. She was succumbing fast to the sedative, so as the nurses wheeled her into the delivery room, she shouted out to my father ‘Dali!! Anong ipapangalan natin?!”
My class was trying hard not to laugh yet.
“My father yelled back, ‘kahit ano na, bahara ka na! Aram mo na!” and my mother only caught the ‘aRAM MO NA’ part. As they say, the rest is history!”
The whole class exploded in guffaws.
I banged the blackboard, “Alright, alright, that’s enough…!” I said to refocus everyone, “that’s a really cool story, Miss Ramona, and I can see YOU have made peace with that name dictated by fortuitous circumstances.” Again my class started giggling.
“Oh, I hated the feminized masculine name, sir. As long as I remember I have avoided using it. All through high school and college, I made my friends call me Mona.”
“Wait a minute,” I paused, “ you were ‘Mona Lee So’ in high school and college??” I said with a mischievous grin.
“I know, I know…and the answer is NO, sir, I don’t smile to tempt my lovers, it’s just my way to hide a broken heart…and YES I am both real and a lovely work of art!”
That’s it, my Omega class couldn’t keep it in anymore. They all just broke out laughing so hard at the novelty of Miss Ramona’s life story. Her seatmate Miss Ursula Bahag-hari couldn’t help it, she put her arms around her neck and planted a kiss on her cheek.
“If only Nat King Cole were alive to hear and see all of this!” I said.
“I like your parents, Miss Ramona, but in my class, everybody gets rebaptized. I’m going to call you Monin because I don’t want you to lose your connection with that wonderful 16th century masterpiece by Leonardo di Caprio.”
“Leonardo da Vinci, sir,” Miss Pinky Maglia Rosa, the class’ Fil-Italian looker corrected me.
“That’s what I said, Leonardo da Vinci,” I recoiled as quickly as I can hoping nobody noticed the Freudian slip.
“I think Monin is a wonderful class nickname for Miss Ramona So, sir. It’s certainly shorter and easier to say than the real name of the Mona Lisa painting which is ‘La Gioconda,’” Miss Pinky added.
“You are half-Italian, I’ll take your word for it, Miss Pinky,” I said.
A few moments later, the class had settled down finally I could launch the evening’s real lecture topic…or formally postpone it, anyway.
“I meant for us to discuss the controversial legal issue of the proposal to legalize marijuana. However, because of recent events involving the arrest of the son of the Justice secretary for illegal possession of almost P1-million pesos worth of marijuana extract, it’s going to be very difficult at this time to talk about it without triggering some very contentious debates that would distract you from a purely academic appreciation of the merits of the question. So I’m thinking we should at least defer the subject till our next meeting.” Reactions broke out like a kettle of popcorn reaching popping point.
“Peace, sir!”
“Faaaar out!”
“Chill!!!”
“What’s happ’nen maaaan?”
“Well, I can see you’re all dialed in on the topic. Pharmaco-psychedelics can do that to you.”
Everybody shut up.
“For whatever it’s worth, I personally have no deep recriminations against it, nor any judgments over people who have consumed cannabis. I have a very good friend, someone I used to play folksinging gigs with in college. Now I’m a lawyer, just like he is. So clearly, the substance didn’t do him too much harm, did it? In fact, as a musical artist, at least, I gotta admit he was better than me.”
“You are a folksinger, sir?” Miss Ursula couldn’t believe her ears.
“Was, Miss Ursula…WAS,” I clarified, “although I never did experiment with the substance.”
“You pass on grass, sir?” Miss Pinky followed up.
“Yes, all the time. WHY do you think he was a BETTER musician than me?”
“I’m not advocating for anything here,” I explained, “I’m just stating the facts, that when my friend was ‘high’ he couldn’t hurt a fly. He couldn’t even trashtalk at you. Marijuana dials back his entire English vocabulary into one word: WOW!” My class laughs.
“And he could say it BACKWARDS—‘WOW!” The class explodes again.
“So that says something about the claim that marijuana has some psychologically-inhibiting active ingredients at least worth investigating for its potential in hospice care treatment protocols. So please further your research on it for the next meeting.”
“Should we also include in our research marijuana’s effect on one’s chances of electoral success, sir?” Miss Monin asked.
“No need, Miss Monin, at this point I think it’s pretty obvious! Class dismissed!”*
No comments:
Post a Comment