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Thank You

Dear RainB and the rest of the gang,

Thank you for your helpful suggestions regarding the wording and text of the blog. My friend, Bambit Gaerlan-Kapauan, and I are still working to improve this blog, as well as pilot-testing my website, in the next few weeks.

As I have said, let me just finish my third and final Ph.D. exam this Friday, on Asian Literature in English, from 8 am to 5 pm, and survive next weeks' final exams' checking time at the Ateneo. After these, I can work on the blog and the website because I have three weeks of paid labor even if it is sem break. This is one of the few perks of teaching!

And thanks, too, to Kristian Cordero of the Bicol Mail for the gracious article about my visit to the Penafrancia Festival. Yes, I went there and unlike other trapos, did not hang any tarpaulin, or visit the powers-that-be, or pretended to join the devotees on the streets.

Instead, I talked to the students, the teachers, the government employees, the salesgirls, the seminarians, the priests, the old people, the teenagers, and the contestants of the Miss Gay and the Mr Bicolandia contests. I talked to as many people as I could. I wish I could also talk to all those governors and mayors and etc, but let me be blunt and say that, in the end, when crunch time comes in the May 2010 elections, these powers-that-be will only help those who could give them the biggest campaign contributions.

And since funds are my Achilles heel, I think I would rather talk to the multitudes and listen to them as they pour their tales of woe in these dark days of disquet, these nights of rage.

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