It’s a Sign

Is it just me or is there something really really off with this sign? It’s an MMDA signage scattered around MRT North EDSA station. Hmm… I wonder who approved this one.

High School Poem

While rummaging through my high school stuff I saw an old notebook which I used for all my subjects in high school. It contained lecture notes, draft school articles, doodles and drawings (done during boring class hours), guitar chord patterns, poems (some of which were also done during boring class hours), and a few journal entries. As I read my notes and poems I wonder in amazement at how I came up with those ideas. It’s like reading someone else’s work. It even made me ask myself “I wrote this in high school?!”.

I don’t know if much has changed between how I think and express myself then and now. But one thing I noticed is that I don’t write much poems now. I guess classes in law school aren’t boring enough to inspire one to write poems or, more likely, law students don’t make much poems because boring subjects suck out their artistic drive.

There was one poem that particularly caught my attention. Back in high school I believed in courtship and that among the best ways to court a girl were through love letters and poems. So I wrote this poem for the girl I liked then, Sarah, who eventually became my first girlfriend.

Sovereign of my lonely heart,

whom I can’t stand to be apart

Allow me to show to you,

how I love and care for you

Reveries of you day and night,

you’re the damsel and I’m the knight

And I’ll save you from the dragon’s sight,

oh my lovely damsel of the night

How I wish these things were true,

how I wish you love me too

After she had her friends read the poem, one of them didn’t believe I made it. That girl, from what I’ve heard, claimed she read the same poem somewhere. I fumed with anger when I heard that comment so I decided to make a hate poem for her. In the middle of the draft, I ran out of ideas to lambast and ridicule her so I decided to stop. I realized then that hate is not as inspiring as “love”.

Kill “Monthsary”

Filipinos give much value to the monthly celebration of a “boyfriend-girlfriend” relationship. In fact, owing to the lack of an English term therefor, we have even created a word for it, i.e., monthsary.

The etymology of this term, however, eludes me. I can only surmise that it is the result of combining “month” and “sary”. The use of the word “month” is without a doubt clear enough. But what about “sary”? Obviously, it was derived from anniversary by taking “anniv” out, which we know to refer to a year. Now, “sary” doesn’t mean anything, or if it does, it is not related to its intended use. Thus, monthsary as a term is senseless.

Since we took it upon ourselves to coin a word, shouldn’t we at least make something that has logical basis? So, I propose  MENSIVERSARY.

Its etymology is easy to understand, we just use “anniversary” as the basis. It comes from two Latin terms, namely, annus and versare. The former means “year” and the latter means “to turn”. So “anniversary” means to turn another year. Hence, if we want to refer to “to turn another month”, we get the Latin term for month, which is mensus, and connect it to the Latin term versare. This results in MENSIVERSARY.

Now we have a logical term. It’s time to stop using something without basis. Don’t greet your loved one “happy monthsary” anymore. It means nothing. It amounts to greeting without meaning. Spread the word. Spread the love. So to all whose relationship turned another month today, I greet you all a HAPPY MENSIVERSARY!!!