A Trip to Remember

11 August 2007
Saturday

if there's a book and a movie called "A Walk to Remember" then this tour of ours is a trip to remember.

It happened in the 11th of August. Fr. Joel Camaya had his class in Creative Writing an experience that we surely will not forget for the rest of our lives.

i am not that much familiar with the who's who in Philipine literature and their works. A requirement for us was to read one of the short stories of a certain Filipino author, which i did, a copy furnished to me by the ever hard-working Chino Reyes a day before the meeting.

Done with perusing "The Light Bringer", i found the writing very vivid in its description of events, situations and people. It's as if that you are actually there experiencing the taste, sound, smell and sight of everything.

After lunch of August 11, Fr. Joel drove the L-300 van with us: Chino, Clemens, Xander, Kerwin, Lorenzo, Jerome, Briandel, yours truly and one of the past pupils of Fr. Joel in high school, a football varsity player - John Paul Raño. We traversed all the routes with heavy traffic going to Malate. Aside from someone who puked due to the horrible traffic and hot weather, our travel was pleasant what with the chocolates and drinks we had as snacks.

We arrived at a place, actually a bookstore owned by Francisco Sionil Jose, who's also the author of many books. i couldn't find any trace of importance, haughtiness from him, but rather a man who loves his work with passion. With his many achievements and awards in Philippine literature, we are so honored and privileged that he granted us time to ask him about many things: his life, work, dreams, initial struggles in being a writer, his family, his views in our government system.

Moments like this only comes once in a lifetime and i am very grateful to have this kind of experience. Surely, Fr. Joel's desire for us to become good writers has fired us up with zeal after this trip