AT THE STOA

by Marc Oliver Pasco      This is a story about a goat named Ram.  One day, Ram was walking along a field when he met another goat.      He asked the goat, "Hey. What's your name?"        The other goat replied, "My name is Nick.  Are you a goat?"        Ram was confused. He said, "No, I'm Ram. What's a goat?"      "Well," Nick said, "I'm a goat. And you look like me.  So you must also be a goat."      "No, I'm Ram," Ram said. "And I'm white.  You're brown.  So I can't be a goat."      "Where do you live?" Nick asked Ram. "I haven't seen you around here before."      "I live on the other side of the road," Ram replied. "I came here because I was hungry."      "Oh, okay." Nick said. "Maybe we can look for some grass to eat."       So off they walked to find food.  They found a nice patch of fresh g

I love Tuesdays for the simple reason that during them I have neither work nor class.  Granted that being a university lecturer makes you take home some of the work, during most Tuesdays I am neither a student nor a lecturer.  The entire day is mine, and entirely at my lazy mercy.  I can walk around the house with just knickers and fluffy slippers on, and go the entire day without wearing glasses or eating proper food or brushing my teeth until I fall asleep from the sheer effort of being unemployed for a day.  Tuesdays are priceless. Recently I have taken to making a pig of myself and a piggery of the bedroom in front of the technological sty that is the television, but sometimes I spend it in the other room, which for lack of a better word and better furniture I will call the "den with a work space in at the other end." My appreciation for Tuesday starts on the Monday afternoon, after leaving work, and I proceed to appreciate the vacancy of my remaining thirty-six ho

Friday.  My sister texted me that she was in Taguig, so off we went, in a cab.  She wanted company while waiting for my brother-in-law to finish a two-hour meeting, I think.  And so, according to how these things go in this mega-city, of course the trip took two hours. So all four of us just went to a rooftop bar and looked at the mall's giant dandelion installations, those that light up in time with music.  The effect was beautiful; and it's really something to see at night. I imagine that during daytime it'll just look like protruding lollipops made of plastic bottles littered around grass.  We traded stories over beer (and one mango shake with no milk, please), watched the giant dandelions some more, and went our separate ways.  It was a good night: my sister and I haven't seen each other in a while, and we went to Fully Booked after saying goodbye and bought the absurdly thick paperback of Batman Eternal . Come Sunday and at the invitation of our department head