AT THE STOA

I'm not used to experiencing storms like this, when I was still up North. When my sister and I were children growing up, I remember storms being blackouts, candles, and the oddly-timed desire to read books with very small print and no pictures, just when classes and homework were suspended.  Sometimes the storms were very angry affairs, and our ceiling, being very low, amplified the raging sound from outside.  Since our barangay was nestled in between the hills that make Baguio a very hilly place indeed, the wind tracing and racing through the contours of hillsides and mountains made sounds like a whistle on steroids.  Sometimes, though, they're almost peaceful, the kind of rain that you can ignore, not knowing that Kennon road is slowly going to pieces as usual, just hearing afterward of the many landslides which queued all the way from the summer that finally went "go!", one after another.  That's usually how storms in Baguio are - landslides leaving gashes

At the right is a picture of what is increasingly becoming my work space. It's the bedroom floor. What is more significant than the answer to the question, "don't you have tables at home?" is why I let my papers due this month balloon to three term papers and two - no, wait, three - shorter papers. Presently I am working on a beginning (and beginner's) conceptual comparative between Derrida and Nishida.  I said that to substantiate the first sentence, and in case you were wondering whether I put that book with the exotic-looking cover in there on purpose. Several things spring to mind, now.  Apart from my Methods of Research professor echoing, first, advice in my head against the evils of binge writing (which I should have paid attention to), and second,  warning (which I also should have paid attention to) about the tendency of putting priorities in order to avoid the first priority becoming first priorit ies,  because it accumulates into the place of immac