Pinoy Blog Machine (Beta)

Almost every girl in the office notice one thing everytime I wear it, and that is none other than my month-old bracelet:

Unique, rare, stainless and inexpensive - it’s just a total headturner. Wherever I put my left hand all eyes go with it because of the bracelet. A friend of mine even told me that it adds to a guy’s appeal (well maybe because she was my friend…)

So where did I get this

Author’s Note: Here’s the little anecdote I said I’d be sharing (as mentioned in my previous post). The anecdote is short, but there are ramblings that follow…

My wanderings inside the mall usually take me to bookstores. One fine day of wandering, I reached National Bookstore (NBS) and found this:

It slipped my mind that I shouldn’t be going anywhere near NBS during those days because it’s the time of the year when classes start and almost everybody and their mother/father are in NBS to buy school stuff. It’s not best time for bookhunting.

But remembering my need to replenish my paper supplies, I surged on and braved the crowd of confused kids in uniform, uncertain of which notebooks to buy (the one with the Garfield cover or the Hello Kitty one?), and irritated parents who get bumped on all sides by the raging stream of sweat-covered and heat-conducting bodies.

I emerged triumphant with my bundle of folders and a ream of bond papers. I was patiently waiting in the long line at the cashier when I heard this conversation between a high school girl and her father:

“You’re just wasting my money on those Harry Potter books…”

“I like reading it. And they’re good books, Dad.”

“You get NOTHING from those! You ought to be just spending your time reading your school books so you get good grades!”

“But, Dad, of course, I read my school books…”

“And those school books are all you need to read!”

As much as I wanted to cut in the conversation and tell the father how much I disagree with most of what he said, I was able to shut myself up, remembering that I don’t have the right to interfere with his parenting.

But I really do believe what he said are wrong.

He actually reminds me of how my own father used to chastise me about spending so much time reading “pocketbooks”, referring to all my Sweet Valley Twins/High/University, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Anne Rice, Stephen King books and etcetera. It’s not a few times that I heard that buying these books were waste of good money. And he had also blamed on it my less than normal eyesight.

I have been a voracious reader starting at a young age. I was one of those few kids in school who had to renew library cards several times a year because I fill it up with my book loans. I read all the volumes of my cousin’s encyclopedia because I don’t have one at home and they don’t read it anyway because they’re too busy killing dragons in their family computer (not that I didn’t spend my time that way, too. But didn’t sit all day just doing that.) I read almost anything.

My parents did not understand why I have to read “so much”. My dad, especially, don’t like seeing me with a new pocketbook at hand and would complain incessantly about having to spend so much in something I’d finish reading in a day or two.

“Why don’t you just read your school books, instead of wasting time reading those?”

From this oft-repeated question, I gathered that my parents thought everything I need to learn were in my school books. I think I was able to prove them wrong when, as a sophomore high school student, I bested senior contestants from schools in our district in an essay writing competition, to qualify, and then, to win at the provincial level. Faculty members of the participating schools were surprised to find out that I was only a sophomore (essays submitted were signed using a pseudonym so as to eliminate bias for a particular school/contestant) and some sought to have me disqualified from the contest because of it. But rules never stated that freshmen, sophomores, or juniors aren’t allowed to compete with seniors. So I kept my award. At the same time, I was also able to maintain my status in school’s honor list. My parents, then, stopped harassing me about my voracious extra-curricular readings.

* * * * *

What does this have to do with the latest Harry Potter movie?

Watch out for my next post, which is about the “Lost Passion For Learning“.

Postscript: Sorry, I’ve to cut the entry into two separate posts. My back is already aching. I need to lie down.

Tags: reading, anecdote, Harry Potter, Harry Potter book