For some strange reason i was given the opportunity of being the guest speaker in this year’s high school graduation of canossa school, my alma mater. Two days prior I went to Mall of Asia and met with some medschool friends, two of whom are my most favorite people in the whole planet, Mar and Therese, who are already 1st year medicine residents.
"I have urticaria," Therese proudly said in between slurps of spaghetti. "I am a classic example. I am the specimen for the students’ exams. Look." She then raised her arm and showed us a very red, raised, very-itchy looking lesion.
"Oooooooh," we all ooohed.
"That’s stress-related. You’re repressing all the rage that you have towards your patients and the people you’re working with, hence, urticaria," I pseudo-psychoanalyzed.
"Anong repress e ang sungit-sungit na nga nya," Mar said.
"Oo nga," Therese agreed.
After pizza and pasta we went straight to Bizu for some dessert. The place had mirrors everywhere, the floors were glistening, everyone smelled nice, the waiters looked well-scrubbed.
"Ang liwanag naman," Mar said.
"Oo nga. Ang sosyal ng place," I chimed. "Nakaka-tempt maghanap ng kubeta."
Abe and I then went to the dessert corner and looked for cakes which all had strange names. The waiter patiently looked at us with a wide grin.
"Hmmm… wala ba kayong mocha roll?" I said. We ended up ordering Babylon, Tiramisu, and four other fancy-looking cakes.
I then asked everyone for their opinion on my prepared speech. "I’m supposed to be inspirational and motivational," I said.
"Bakit ikaw ang guest speaker?! Ang bata mo pa," Abe asked.
"Eh bakit nung oath taking natin si Patricia Evangelista?!" I retorted. Good thing nobody replied with: Because she’s a very fluent master debater and writer who’s won international acclaim for her speaking prowess.
I declamed an excerpt from memory:
"A patient once died on me. Come to think of it, a patient always dies on me. My friends, noting my usual stoic expression whenever life is lost, would say, ‘Are you already so desensitized? Have you lost all your feelings after all the misery and death you’ve witnessed?’ Annoyed at this emotional intrusion I would say, ‘Of course not, maybe I wasn’t sensitized to begin with. Maybe i didn’t have any feelings to lose in the first place.’ "
Everyone burst out laughing. "You’re supposed to inspire, not disillusion," one of them said.
"I know, but I want to include that passage regardless," I insisted.
In a stroke of genius only Mar could come up with, she said, "You should add this: And yet, even as I was saying those words, I knew I didn’t mean them, that I was merely employing an emotional defense mechanism."
Graduation day, and that’s exactly what I’ve said. Thank you, Mar, for inspiring all the graduating Canossians. You’ve saved them from premature disillusionment. To balance things out, I just had to say this: I know it’s difficult to subscribe to the cliche "Be Yourself", as Lisa Simpson once said, "I was being myself for 8 years, and it didn’t work."
The graduation went by smoothly, until I realized that the students were one by one going to the stage, with a very familiar instrumental music playing in the background. I then burst into wild laughter as I realized that the song was… High School Life Oh My High School Life! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!
All in all I guess my speech worked. I even learned how to properly tie a necktie. All this time I never learned how to do it, so this time I googled for the technique and discovered tieanecktie.com. I now know a windsor from a half-windsor knot.
April 3, 2007
