A pair of Chopsticks and a bowl of Rice

a compilation of essays

Gershom Cadiz Chua

070791

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Bread and Butter

On Tolerance

Appetizers

Haunted by Memories

Main Course

Journey Back Home

Dessert

On Writing the Essays

Bread and Butter

On Tolerance

Our society has always been divided up into two: the side of the majority and that of the minority. They may be separated by the ideals they choose to hold on to, by the faith that they stand on, by the culture that may be their grounds for difference, or any other that may mark their uniqueness to the other.

All throughout history, the world has progressed from the oppression of the minority to the gradual consideration given to them. In the past, people were killed for being different from most others. Usually this difference gave rise to a conflict between these two factions and obviously the side with the greater number and strength overpowers the few. In our present times, we try to address the mistakes that happened in the past by becoming more lenient toward those different from us. We now see the minority as more or less equally treated with the majority. Most of the time, we see special consideration and treatment given to those who choose to be different out of respect to their choice. All this respect has been healthy and essential for a growing civilization such as the world we have today, but when we start to see a kink to this system, this demand for respect and tolerance might be in the way of seeing it through for the good of everybody.

Our modern world of democracy and freedom has always taught us that each is entitled to his own opinion and choice, with the set of rights granted us by our sophisticated society, but what if one’s choice harms that of another?

A great example that can be cited to the flaw of this respect system is the global stand on smoking and the freedom smokers have to enjoy their ‘rights’. As everybody knows, smoking harms the body by destroying the respiratory system through inhaling smoke, and the damage brought about by this activity not only falls to the individual who chose to indulge himself in his choice but also to those innocent people around him. A world survey determined that the number of people who chose not to smoke was still greater than that of those who did. Does this mean that the majority bends for the minority and along the way suffer damage they did not deserve? Another study indicated that the number of people who were harmed by lung cancer but are not smokers themselves is growing, at almost equal with that of those who only reap what they sow. A common known fact about lung cancer is that the severity of lung cancer eventually suffered by second-hand smokers (passive smokers, or the bystanders around the smoker) is greater than the damage sustained by first-hand smokers (or the people who actually smoke). Knowing this fact, we are all exposed flatly not only to lung cancer (as grave as it is) but also to other not-so-common respiratory infections that are as deadly as the former.

We’ve read this topic discussed in health magazines time and again but what kept me on this subject is the fact that the people who choose to smoke and even fight for their ‘right’ (for they say they have the ‘right’ to choose to pollute the environment and destroy their physical well-being in the process) disregard the fact that the people around them also have rights, specifically the right to have and live in a clean and smoke-free environment. What they seem to forget is that this is not only a fight of who gets to do what freely, but of who gets to suffer what even without having done anything to deserve it.

Allowing the minority to continue to endanger the welfare of the majority is just absurd. This goes beyond respect and steps over the line of stupidity. This tolerance that we give so freely put the majority in harm’s way, reflecting a society that chooses to please and be politically correct than being protective and geared towards the welfare of all.

Another great example of the flaws in this demand for understanding is the new ‘No Religious Activities in School’ policy approved by the American Department of Education to be issued in their public schools. This recent rule prevents students to practice their faith in school and allows the school to give punishments to students who gather in groups to talk and act on any practice relating to their faith. According to the US Department of Education, this new rule merely emphasizes the difference between state and religion. This was supposedly an answer to complains of the non-Christian minority of parents and students against the prevalent religious activity of Christian communities in schools.

Predominantly Christian, students are now banned from talking of their faith to other students, and showing any religious inclination toward students of other religions. This greatly affects the Christian community of students since their faith is to be lived by daily, that in everything they do, their faith should be a great part of it. This new rule smothers the very foundations of Christianity, which is sharing the Word of God and praying to God in every chance available, and is, on the other hand, quite favorable to the Atheist community, since they have no faith to practice at all. If this rule was to be for the good of all (since policies are made in the purpose of making life better), why then is it suppressing the student’s moral choices? Should millions of Christian children live under the fear of being caught standing on their faith while a handful of non-Christian students savor the absence of ‘annoying’ little clusters? If the policy were to be for the good of all, it would have left the majority and the minority alone to practice their faith anytime as long as they do not force it upon others and maintain a sense of respect towards each other. If it were to be for the welfare of everybody, it should not have chosen one side over the other.

Sadly, times have now changed to favor the minority over the majority. In compensation for the narrow-mindedness of the past, the present tries to please the once slave-driven, persecuted minority. It values the demand of the minority for respect and compromises the majority to do the former’s bidding. In everyone’s efforts to be politically correct and ‘fair’ to everyone else, they have set aside morality and welfare to be considered understanding and respectful. In a desire to go the way ‘sophistication and the modernization of our times lead to’, they disregard the need to be truly just and fair. I guess this gradual tilting of our world to ‘social diversity and consideration’ is the only way to go as pointed by the changing times.

Appetizers

Haunted by Memories

Most people turn to their memories to seek comfort or find solace from their nightmarish present. Fairy tale characters use to find refuge in their memories, like Snow White daydreaming about her times in the palace before she got stuck with the Seven Dwarfs in their humble home, or when Cinderella thinks back to when her father was still alive and her stepmother and stepsiblings weren’t in the picture yet. Many turn to reminisce to the good old days; most hold on to fond memories of their childhood. Unlike most, I turn back time to go back down memory lane only to find myself seeing the bad times so clearly and the good times usually blurred over by the former. I’ve always yearned to be like most other people, but I guess nightmares overweigh the dreams I might have had. Memories of regret, lost chances, and grave loss haunt me every time I try to probe back to my “remember when’s”; I am dogged by these nightmares I might just never shake off.

BACK IN FIRST YEAR, I was assigned to sit next to this girl. She had a simple heart-shaped face, with the usual ‘chinky’ eyes and unremarkable nose. She had freckles across her cheeks and was of a fairly typical cream-colored complexion. She was ordinary, possessed and had nothing to make you turn your head twice to take peeks at her, certainly nothing compared to my previous girl friends. She faired averagely in class, acted as someone who could have been drowned in a crowd of people without any reason to stand out; but what got me pretty much glued was her innocence. Her sense of the world was still hills of flowers and butterflies while the rest of us freshmen had ideas of how the world is a dangerous place. That there are, present in every dark corner and alleyway, people waiting to rob and assault. I guess her naivety attracted me, beckoned me to tease her, and to expose her to the real world where hurt and sorrow and actual pain exists. She was too much and too easy of a temptation to resist. This much I know was the sole reason for my courting her then, well, maybe with a little actual infatuation, but other than that, all I only wanted was to add another name to my ‘past girlfriends’ list.

The courtship led to days and days and weeks and weeks of selfish fun. I caught myself spending time passing notes to her across our foot and a half distance from each other, setting up late night instant messaging conversations that lasted three to four hours on end, or talking about the silliest of things and always ending with the sweetest lines (note to future players: e.g. Good night, I’ll be dreaming of you, that’s for sure!). I did everything out of the old guide book to ‘getting girls fast for dummies’, and by the end of exactly the third month (and the book’s last chapter), I had her.

It was three months in courtship, and exactly a day before Valentines’. I arrived in school feeling quite confident. The sky shone marble gray with streaks of sunlight shining through the cracks of dreary clouds. The cold breeze blew in and out of the campus; everything just so welcomed me! This was just my day. Carrying my bag carelessly over my left shoulder and a bouquet of faint-pink tulips nestled on my right arm, I made my way into the classroom. Nobody was inside, so far so good. I planted the bouquet right by her chair, which was first of her row beside the left wall. On her table I placed a pink-colored envelope with her name printed on it, and a single rose tied with a black ribbon over it. It was a little before the first bell when she finally arrived and discovered the surprise. I asked her for an answer to be given the next day. She said she would think about it, with an obvious pleased smile on her face. Done deal.

Valentines’ Day. The sky was clear that morning, sunny but not too hot. From the way she looked at me, I knew her answer there and then.

The day proceeded great. During one of the breaks, I placed another bouquet of tulips by the seat across the end of the room, the first seat by the right wall. This new bouquet was meant for someone else. I’d decided that since she was a done deal even before I started, I’d try a two-time trick this time.

While I was courting her, I was working two shifts as well. During breaks, I’d sneak out of the room and have a snack or two, even lunch, with this other girl across the room. This girl was cute; actually, she was my girlfriend back in third grade. Our relationship then was sweet but short-lived, I guess I never knew what led to our drifting apart. This time, I tried another shot at us.

Everything was working out well, until ‘naïve girl 1’ saw the bouquet by the right wall after dismissal. She saw the handwriting on the little envelope that was stuck to the base of the bouquet; she knew it was mine. Apparently, she knew my handwriting by heart. It was a stupid and insensitive move I did, I now realize, for after that, she refused to talk to me again. Only after a year did we talk and engage in friendly conversation. It was stupid of me, since the night after the discovery, I talked to our middleman, a mutual friend, who told me that her answer was supposed to be YES, and that I was mean and rude to have played her all along. My relationship with the girl suffered for a year or two. I knew the consequences, and I had to face them. I was a jerk for doing what I did.

If I could only turn back time, I would. Now, four years after, I realize just how painful love can leave us limping. I imagine she does not trust any guy with her heart anymore. I now only realize the gravity of my mistake, of how much I’ve hurt her, harmed her even. That point of having actually damaged someone’s life has haunted me in all my relationships that followed, leading me to end most of them to make sure I won’t hurt another one again.

IT WAS RAINING. The sky looked on as if to foretell my misfortune that day. I stood in line awaiting the free bus driving customers to Taiwan’s leading department stores/super market chain. The clothes I wore were a bit too thin for the cold weather, good thing I brought my umbrella with me. I intended it for the sun; I never saw that it was to rain hard that day. I would’ve cursed the rain if it only hadn’t brought about the incident I am now writing of next.

The ground felt rough even under my rubber shoes, rubble filling in gaps of my shoes’ rubber footing; the chill that surrounded everyone only suited my preference for the cold. My walkman phone kept playing in my ears against the howl of the great wind, and I was waiting. The next bus would not come for another six minutes. I stood there, enjoying the cold and the shelter I got from my umbrella keeping out the raindrops from ruining my shirt, pants and giving me a cold. Thirty seconds passed.

I saw a slight commotion up the front of the line. A girl about my age was asking those behind her if she could go under their umbrella; nobody minded her. She looked cute with her slightly damp hair running down the back of her jacket and some sticking to her cheeks. She was a good four or five steps away from me when I extended my arm with the umbrella, inviting her to go under it with me. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold, a posy red peeping from the ivory white of her face. I could tell that she was quite well-off, wearing a cute outfit typical of the Tokyo-Taipei fusion of a leather jacket, a gray-green top and a decent enough checkered skirt. Her hair had strands of red highlights (or were they lowlights, I don’t know exactly what they are to be called) amidst her real black hair color and she had on long thin earrings that had those clear colored beads hanging from her ears. She thanked me in rushed Chinese and I answered a hurried ‘You’re welcome’, growing quite conscious of my own blushing cheeks. She went under my umbrella and started answering a text message she had just received. She pressed and thumbed her reply into the phone, and after a while, she looked at me, probably remembering that I was there, and gave me a shy smile. I smiled back.

As if by magic, I actually felt the minutes ticking by but during that time it was as if time was frozen altogether by the chill of the wind when, this I am certain of, our eyes met after those shy smiles. I will never know how long we stared or how brief we glanced at each other, I just felt it happening. I was about to ask her name when the bus, which I guess took its time then and just arrived to ruin the moment—my moment, our moment, came and we were lost in the muzzle of people getting in and out that followed. I never saw her in the bus. I was never sure if she took the same bus as I did for there was another one that came briefly after the first one did, but I never saw her again. I never got around to asking her name. Or her number.

I think it was a storm that hit us that day, but it was surely nothing compared to the storm in my heart as I rode silently to the store.

I could never believe I was that stupid to have let that chance slip under me. I now realize it was right there, ready for me to grab. Even if the crowd stirred because of the bus, I still should have exerted an effort to at least try and ask what I needed to know. Now, every time I see an opportunity I try to grab it right by the throat, as if trying in vain to grab the chance I once lost.

IT WAS NIGHT TIME and I remember having only finished half of what a math problem asked for when the call came.

My mother went to sit on the sofa chair by the phone, as she customarily does, and answered it. She was cheerful at first, as she usually is on telephone conversations with friends and relatives, but then grew quieter as the conversation took to its third or fourth minute. I sensed that it was unhappy news when my mother starting sobbing, silently at first until it grew fiercer as she rocked her body back and forth on the chair. I knew it was grave news. I knew too that it was news from family as she spoke in her childhood tongue—visayan—and started mentioning names I could vaguely remember to be that of her sister and some other simple words that I understand after years of having helpers from the south.

She spoke in hushed tones, as if under stress, to the whole of the family present in the living room, after her crying spell, long after she put down the receiver. “Ahia, Shoti, Shobe, Lolo is gone.” She called me Ahia. It is Chinese for Older brother, and so is Shoti for younger brother and Shobe for younger sister. She said these words so serene, so calm, as if her crying spell didn’t just happen seconds before she addressed us.

I felt tension in the air, as if something was about to break. My father sensed it too, for after hearing those words, he went over to the chair by the side of the phone, to where my mother sat, rigid and controlled, knelt down to her level, and hugged her tightly. My mother sobbed onto papa’s shoulder. After a moment’s silence, she once again composed herself and said matter-of-factly, “Ahia, papa and I are going to Cavite to see your Lolo. Make sure Shoti and Shobe are asleep within the hour. Remember to brush your teeth and go to the CR before going to bed. Bye.” She and pa went into the room to prepare mama’s purse and pick up papa’s wallet. They passed by and each placed kisses gently on all three of us. We packed our books back into our school bags, brushed our teeth, and went to bed. The night seemed darker that night.

I can never describe the way I went through my life after that. I lived through all of the routines without really living, eating the food set before me breakfast, lunch, and dinner without really tasting, and studying the lessons in class without really learning. Everything felt different. Now I realize I felt guilt. Guilty of never being there to visit Lolo. Guilty of never really loving Lolo. Guilty of never really knowing Lolo.

In his funeral, and even after his burial, I never cried. Never shed a tear for him. I never knew the reason why; I grieved, deep and honest down in my heart, but I never saw the need to cry, never felt the need to break down. I was the Ahia of my family, I must be strong, for I am strong…

The loss of Lolo always stuck to my mind, to the extent that every time I see my living grandparents in my father’s side, I try to channel the love and attention I should have given him to them. Always, I am hounded by thoughts of regret over the times I’ve wasted, feeling the cold breath of loss at the back of my neck, ready to pounce on me anytime. Never once do I stop and not think of the things I could’ve done for him, things we could’ve done together. I guess I thought he would be an ever-present entity in my life; that the thought of him dying was impossible and that I would always have time in the future to bond with him. I hope he could still see me from where he now is, looking on forgivingly at me, knowing that I’ve always loved him.

Memory can always be a book one can look over and read time and time again, after finding it worthwhile and quite remarkable. Sometimes though, memory can be a plague, a haunting, an unpleasant dream that haunts you, keeps you fighting, competing, and proving yourself to the world when everybody else tells you there is nothing to prove. It can also be a beast, prowling behind you, gnawing at your heart whenever you let your guard down and think back to your wrongs, to the things you could’ve done differently. It stalks, it waits, it haunts. Memory is a bittersweet thing; I guess it only depends on which things we look at that decides when it will start to hound us, and where we choose to look that matters.

Main Course

Journey Back Home

I was raised to see China and Taiwan as my mother countries, to accept my duty and pledge my loyalty to them, and to choose to be a Chinese-Filipino, not the other way around. I grew up with stories of how China once ruled almost the entire known world and how it once was, and still is, the proud empire I belong to. My grandmother told me tales of ancient heroes, how they fought and held on to the principles of tradition and age-old wisdom, and of numerous emperors, how they governed the Middle Kingdom to greatness. My father made me memorize three thousand year old Tang poems that can not be understood with mere basic knowledge of the language. I was taught to appreciate the wonders of our culture, how colorful our five thousand years worth of history was and how it was an honor to be part of it. I was born into a family that chose to be different, and though it stays in this foreign land, its heart is still in the land it left.

When I was fourteen, it was decided that I be sent to China that summer to visit my homeland and see the place my grandparents came from. My heart filled with joy as at last I would get to see the land where all my grandmother’s stories took place, to walk on the actual patch of dust where the wondrous heroes she told me about once marched on. Summer seemed too slow to come as my fourteen year old self boiled in anticipation.

When at last I arrived, I was greeted by teachers who would be accompanying me all throughout my stay in Xiamen, Fujian. They welcomed the group of Chinese-Filipino students I was in with warm hugs and smiles. As the teachers engaged me in conversation, they were surprised that I knew how to speak the language, and said they never expected a Huaqiao (a Chinese born abroad) to know how to converse in the mother tongue. They showered me with a lot more praises as is customary in meeting a new acquaintance. Anxious to help me settle in comfortably, they were very hospitable and obviously made efforts to check up on me every once in a while. They were truly gracious and most lovable people, thoughtful to say the least.

As soon as I arrived, I knew I would fall deep in love with China. From my airplane window and until I sat in the bus they drove to pick us up from the airport, my eyes were glued to the streets, the fields, the highway, the city that we passed. Everything seemed so wonderful that there was not enough time to take in everything in detail. We seemed to be driving along too fast as I tried very hard to take in a small sign, a field of grains, a lush patch of vegetable plantation, a city shop, neighborhoods that stretched miles and miles on end, one enormous department store after another; I was honestly tempted to ask the driver and the teachers around me to please slow the car to a crawl just so that I could digest everything. The teacher seated at the back of the bus smiled at me affectionately as I caught her eye, I guess she thought it was very cute that a fourteen year old boy had such curiosity to the simplest things she had been seeing all her life.

The university we stayed in was large; the campus was about half the area of the Ateneo. I was sent to a local university in Jimei, a small city by the outskirts of Xiamen. It had a nice little community surrounding it. The teachers led me and a few other students to our living quarters where we were separated into occupying two floors, one for the girls and the one a floor higher was ours. The rooms each had six-student capacities, but since the students who joined our group were only a handful, four people were assigned to a room. It had fair furnishings, simple and practical. There were three double-deckers and six cabinets on one side, six study tables on the other, and a separate room way across the room that housed three separate mini-rooms: the shower, the toilet, and three sinks. My room mates turned out to be quite cordial. They were well-mannered guys from different parts of the Philippines; I believe one was from Davao and the other two from Bacolod. I knew from the start we’d get on well.

The weeks that followed saw us eating together in the great hall (the sound of metal chopsticks clinking against each other still as sharp today as though I’d just heard it), sitting in classrooms filled with raised hands and voices struggling to put together a sentence in Chinese, and cramped along the corridors outside our sleeping quarters way past our lights-out time as we chatted up the girls staying on the floor directly below ours. Our tiny Chinese-Filipino group gradually bonded; soon, everybody knew everyone else’s names.

Looking back, what stood out shining from all the other memories we had from that trip was the places we went to and the people we met as time went by. They would be the ones none of us in the group would ever forget.

On weekday afternoons and the whole of weekends, we were free to go around the community surrounding the campus. We went down the cobbled streets to visit shops and shops lining the side walk. On the first day we were free to roam around, no one dared to venture out of the group as we were herded by the teachers who willingly gave us a tour. They told us which shops sold what and which had the best bargains on potentially nice souvenirs or gifts for Pa and Ma. Before they left us to the remainder of that first day out in the community, we were given the best lesson I guess I can never forget: ‘Laoban gei de jiaqian, dei haohao cong yiban kaishi jiang.’ (When a shop owner gives a price, start bargaining from a little below half the given amount.) That was to be our golden rule. We dispersed into twos and threes with that instruction in mind.

It took awhile, but after a week of perfecting my bargaining skills, I was crowned the head bargainer of the group. Every time a girl would see a pair of shoes she’d want to purchase, I was called in to help. Every time a gadget or a toy would catch some guy’s eye, I was hauled in to intervene. My skill was a blessing, which turned out to be a burden in disguise, though seeing smart purchases made and the satisfied smiles on my friends’ faces made the whole ordeal worth it.

Soon, the group would not go out shopping as a group anymore and my skill would then only be required in desperate situations. Groups of friends started popping out and not long after, everybody was not only shopping in the little community but even went as far as riding buses to Xiamen City to hit the great malls.

The riverstone streets smelled of freedom, the shops that lined the community and the others that lay beyond were screaming for us to explore, and we were all just ready to go out and pounce on our new found haven. Every time I would walk to the shops, I would stare down the path ahead of me and think just how different it was from the land I grew up in. Here, everyone was reminded by the past with the architecture and the prevailing wares the shops had, but also feel right in the present with the cars passing by and the high billboards standing high above the roaring crowds of the market. I feel and taste and smell and hear the China of the past, just like how my grandmother described it in her tales, but the sights that welcomed my modern eyes were familiar. A perfect harmony of the past and the present, even a sense of the future, was present in every shop, every restaurant, every alley, and every corner of my China. The feeling of getting all these things at once both overcame and awed me. I could not find a spot of the Philippines anywhere, but it was alright; I was in my homeland.

The people added magic to the splendor we saw around us. They seemed to be all smiles when they see us, and every time we passed by a humble home before reaching a shop we wanted to go to, we would see the little children, with flushed cheeks from the cold, waving at us from the inside. They were beautiful people. It would be common by the third week to hear the girls in our group chatting up about a cute guy they met inside the university campus or a ‘gorgeous hunk’ they saw in a shop somewhere in the community market, whom they would later visit as often as thrice in a week. The women were gorgeous to say the least, ivory-skinned with great expressive ‘chinky’ eyes, flushed cheeks, and sensuous red lips. It even became known that two female teachers who were fresh graduates from the university were our unanimous crushes. I now wonder who ever did let slip that little group secret.

Throughout the duration of our stay, we saw more of China and grew to love it more and more. We got to visit temples where some of my grandmother’s stories actually happened (or were at least mentioned), went to graves of ancient heroes, all of whom Gran has told me about, and had photo ops in the historical sites that led to the change in the China of today. I finished the trip, never realizing that the kid in me saw what he had only dared to dream of in the past, and had grown up into a young adolescent ready for more. What I knew though, and this was perfectly clear to me, was that I found home at last. I need not be someone who held on to what made me different from the people of that place; to the contrary, I brandished the things that I shared with them. I not only heard Gran’s stories anymore but lived them. I was in the land I was raised to love. I was home at last.

Dessert

On Writing the Essays

I would never have known the joys of editing if not for this compilation of essays. If a lesson is in order after such a wonderful and tedious experience, then it is this: Writers write in white heat and edit in cold blood. Once inspiration and ideas hit, writers just jab on the keypad keys letting them all flow. As the moment of delirium subsides and the writing comes to an end, a writer feels both the ebbing away of ecstasy and the sinking in of reality: This piece must be perfect. Then the writer takes out his red ball pen and starts whipping his essay bloody. With the dripping paper of corrections, he retypes the final product of his efforts, offering his heart and soul’s masterpiece to the first reader interested to scrutinize it and shout bloody murder over a proofread mistake. He humbly takes his attacked art back and broods over the ‘corrections’ day and night. Once the writer recovers from the shock and the grief, he takes out his pen and writes another one again. Such is the life of a writer.

In preparing my bread and butter, I wrote ‘On Tolerance’ with the initial presumption that my professor’s favors the scientific approach to essays and as hard as it was on me, I had to pretend stiff to come up with it. Initially dealing with smoking, the essay grew to be focused more on the way the majority now willingly compromises its welfare for the cries of the minority, an issue of freedom and rights. A lot of thought and brainstorming went into it, more so that I kept putting it off until I had no choice but to edit it. The writing process was painful but rewarding.

Now, in arranging my appetizers, I wrote ‘Haunted by Memories’ with much more ease. I did not feel the need for false pretenses anymore and so I wrote luxuriously on this one. Writing it felt like being back in my old waters again, familiar and enjoyable. With much disappointment, it was returned to me with a much lower grade than the one I expected. After a chat with my professor, it turns out I left a lot of grammatical errors in the text of this essay. My, I guess I’ll just blame it on familiarity. I realized then how important editing was. When I started editing for this compilation, this was the first one I did right away. I knew in my heart I could have done loads better and knew which ones I’d correct, which ones I’d take out, and which ones I’d need to add from the heart. I had a great time editing it, and I really hope that readers will like it just as I do.

Lastly, in serving the bomb out of the shell, the main course for this meal, I wrote ‘Journey Back Home’ with pretty much enough experiences from the first two essays to tell me I should write with both the heart and the mind. It was hard at first, having written something to start with then right in the middle, stopping, looking over what I’ve got and closing the window of this document numerous times before I finally got what I wanted and stuck to it. I knew from the start I would be writing about my trip to China, but I never knew just how to start or just what experiences to tell, or which trip I’d focus on. When I finally got the ball going after the fourth ‘unacceptable’ trial, inspiration started hitting me again and the words just flowed like red hot lava out of my mind and into the computer screen. Editing it was no simple task; going over descriptions that I would have loved to include in the essay but decided to delete (because it ended up contributing nothing to the general output) broke my heart. Anyway, I got over it about an hour into editing the last essay so everything’s fine now.

In dishing this last part of the meal, the dessert, I just let my heart bleed out with ‘On Writing the Essays’ as I think is quite obvious. I do hope this adds a sweet tang after the tough things you’ve had to chew. I hope this time somebody likes my cooking!

Notes