( dreams )

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

So here's how the rest of my day ended up.

I printed the essay, resume, application and authorization forms.

Why do I bother blogging about that?

Oh man, you have no idea.

You see, our laser printer broke down some time ago. My dad not being the kind of guy to get things done like that right away,--did you know we spent a month sticking a piece of cardboard whenever we closed the door from the inside, because that half of the knob was disfunctional? Or that we lived with using a screwdriver to turn our kitchen faucet for I don't know how freaking long, and then he spent less than minute, literally, just fixing it?--I had to make do without it and settle with the ribbon printer.

And then the nightmare begins.

After taking a shower, I worried about going to school with damp hair sticking to my head that my makes me look like some Martian. That was around 3. I loved the time I had. Print, go to school, maybe call up someone to hang with.

Eeeenk!

First, I couldn't get the margins right. Then, I remembered I forgot the page numbers, so that was my fault, so okay. But it takes this ribbon printer a stone age speed to print that my dad kept telling me to just write my papers instead. I was kind of frustrated then, but not yet to the limit.

It was after that that drove me crazy. It stopped printing at times, it ate the paper too fast, the margins went wrong again, it blotted. Paper after paper--I wasted 16 sheets of paper in all. By the time I finished printing the essay, it was 6. I was feeling sick--really. My head ached and tears were smarting behind my eyes and felt miserable. I prayed along the way. When I finally came to terms with the damned printer, I read Twilight in between printing. I kept texting Maam Jocy, pleading her to wait a little longer at school. Thankfully she didn't mind.

I finished everything at 6:30, or a little after. My dad, really bad at stress and tension, got caught up in my problem and was fuming. He's kind of in his menopausal stage, as I like to call it. He was so mad he actually shouted at me, but he didn't blame me, but my teacher (poor Maam J) and on the way to the school dropped his glasses out of the window. And then I discovered that at that very moment, a meeting was starting that he was supposed to be in. It was a bad guilt trip.

When I got there, it felt so awkward that Maam Jocy had not the slightest idea how frustrating the day was, even though I updated her on my hate-mad condition along with my earlier apologies. I felt like it was all in vain. While she was editing on my hard-printed paper (I try not to think about it: 11 pages, 3 hours...), smearing it with her pen, breaking my heart, I read the rules over, just to have something to do. Then it finally dawned on me. Exactly what postmarked meant, anyway. But that made sense.

The thing wasn't due in Palanca's hands tomorrow.

It only had to be postmarked April 30.

So that's why Maam Jocy was still smiling, despite my exploded brain trying to recover from the hassle. And from the shock of the revelation, it exploded again. My headache rang like an annoying alarm clock ring through my head.

Punch meeeeee.

I felt like a sick, maddened, escaped patient from the mental ward.

So after walking away and making my dad wait until he was an hour late to his meeting, he didn't have time to bring me back home, so I had to come along with him to his dinner meeting. I would have come along even if he wanted to take me home, just to save time. I really was guilty.

And then I wasn't.

He apparently didn't want me to mix with those foul, cigarette smoke-inducing dirty-word blabbering horrible dirty old men he had to be stuck with. Well, not all of them, but I reckon most of them were. So he shoved a P500 bill at me and motioned for me to sit in one of the tables in the pergola of Dencio's while he proceeded to the dark hut in the corner, and I felt just so aggravated.

And THEN. No waiter would come near me. I glared at them, but I didn't want to wave them over because I knew if I spoke right at that moment all my anger would just spew forth. And so, to restrain myself, I waited until my temper would fade to order.

Which took until my dad came to my table and ordered with me. I grabbed my dad's phone and dialed my mom pronto. I needed a cushion to dump myself on. My father peacefully left me alone again, complaining endlessly to my mom and becoming poised and human again.

I spent the rest of the night drowning in my thoughts and in bottomless iced tea, and enjoying my own company. Didn't mind it a bit. I guess I just needed food. I even did an Audrey Hepburn after the meeting ended and we were the only ones left and sat in a swing while my dad talked to my mom over the phone, and sang oldies, and imagined my fantasy Edward Cullen on the swing seat beside me.

Sammi would call me pathetic. I would too. But it felt natural, like I wasn't doing it because it was an Audrey Hepburn thing, but because I liked swings and singing to stars. Well, I like singing, since stars are rare in the midst of Davao City lights.

Wow. I just looked back and and saw how fantastically long this post has been. I'll resign to my reading Twilight now and Ciao out of here. ^_^