SENTI MODE LANG PO

I have been away from my family for almost four months now. It may seem that four is just a small number, an immaterial digit. But for me, it has been a long quarter and one month.

I should have been in Dipolog by now - enjoying free delicious food, the bucolic boulevard view, and endless conversations with family and friends - had it not for the term extension mandated by the school. The supposed two-week vacation plan has now been reduced to a one-week leave. The schedule is now fixed to make sure that I will spend time with people that matter most to me - my family, my best friends, my high school chums, my two little boy cousins.

Kung bakit pa kasi ang layo-layo ng mga taong malalapit sa puso ko.

Times like this, Daughtry's and Michael Buble's own versions of "Home" become a mandatory playlist, with a loop set for a continuous and endless rewind. The songs just speak of this moment - the exhausted self, both as a professor and student, wanting to unwind, needing of that unconditional love, that worthy companionship. For even just for a single week, I will not be that probinsyano living in Metro Manila but simply the Dipolognon, that hometown lad, that I truly am - a son, a friend, a high school classmate, a doting Kuya Nens.

I need to re-energize, to inspire myself before I face the new term.

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And yes, Saturday, I can't wait to see. See you soon, Dipolog.