Alright, so I woke up from a three- hour sleep in the middle of the day which isn’t usual since I’m often found facebook- ing instead of dribbling on my pillow during this time. There’s this temporary routine deviation because my roommate, Dandie took the laptop and brought it to school with him without my permission. He’ll be expecting a long, stressful and non- ear- friendly lecture on the importance of asking permission from me when he gets back. I’ll make sure of that. So when I got home from the office, the first thing I did was arranged my bed and then I picked my dog- eared copy of Kapitan Sino. Within seconds, the silence of our room was replaced by the music of my snoring (Yes, I snore so if you plan to be my future husband, you better take note of it.)

After a series of failed attempts to sleep again, I gave up and suddenly had the urge to write. I didn’t really have anything in mind to scribble about but it seemed my hands had minds of their own in their restless quest for a pen and paper. They eventually found both.

So I sat on a table. Wrote a line—erased it; wrote another line, unfortunately, it met the same fate. I then paused and looked through the window to see if there’s anything that would inspire me to write something that, though not necessarily Pulitzer- worthy, might, at least make sense. However, the pretty little window offered nothing other than smoke coming from a burnt heap of dead leaves. I ended up teary- eyed, not because of some overwhelming emotion that’s killing me; it’s because of the smoke. Too bad nobody saw me crying while trying to write, that would have given an impression that I'm profound. It will have looked good on my biography. Don’t you think?

The daylight slowly faded and I had to turn the light on just so I could see my own handwriting, which I sometimes couldn’t understand.

I’ve already spent thirty minutes on this chair and I’m now under a fluorescent light with a blue plastic bag hanged at its center. Just to veer away from the discomforting thought of the possibility that the writer in me has died, I checked the blue bag’s contents. It had some left- over puso Dandie brought yesterday for dinner. I’m sure they’ll end up being thrown away but I’ll let him do that, himself. I might have the urge to give him a long sermon about how people from countries like Japan, Switzerland, and Germany are dying of hunger but many times I tried and ended up meeting face to face with the futility of doing so. Dandie, the person I’ve been closest to since High School, has been doing things his way and I’ve come to somehow, get used to it. Wait. Let me write about something else. This note isn’t going to be about that... that... left overer.

There’s a bottle of calamansi concentrate in front of me, right now. Beside it is a mug with water inside where a little ant is swimming or simply floating, maybe. I don’t know. It’s not moving. Is it just playing dead? There’s also a hair puller; two empty Sola bottles; some spoons and forks as well as plates that haven’t been moved from where they were placed, for a week now; some cotton balls; and a plastic bag which used to contain ensaimadas Kim, another roommate, ate two or three days ago. I just made a description of what our dining table looks like most of the time. If that made you think we’re disorganized, try living with us for a few days. We’ll re- define your idea of culture- shock.

This is not getting anywhere. Let me go back to bed. I’ll try to see if I can sleep again.