Good Morning MSU

(NOTE: This piece came from PERLA FICKENSCHER. She sent it to through the Googlegroup and asked me to post it. She has been invited to be one of the Contributors but is not yet familiar with the blog system. I have already sent her instructions on how to activate her status as contributor. So hopefully her next piece will be posted directly by her."

Good Morning MSU!

Southern California is cloudy, bit cold this morning. We are expecting storm and rain tonight.

Past few weeks has been hectic - so hectic in fact that I had bad dreams about it. But nobody to blame but me. Dont get me wrong. I am smelling the roses as well.

The pace is my choice. I wrote renewal for my own work/grant and I wrote two new grants. Found out all three got funded. Now I have to write full blown application ..but only for one grant. Ok so my ego got stoked, but come July 1, I have to walk the talk. However, I am not so lucky in my other application. So, I won 3, lost 1.

It is so nice to read about many MSUans joining our internet group...especially them young ones. And they are just as emotional about MSU as we are! MSU has magic that captures us back, even after we leave. I read Marc Castrodes poem about MSU. His story is different. When the rest of us MSUans leave for home during semester breaks, he is already home. And he remembered the quite and chilly nights....must have been special when MSU was his….alone. I was in MSU once before class started and it felt different. Felt like I was trespassing. After reading Marc's poem, now I understand.

A friend mentioned that I was the last one he expected to do stuff for MSU. He is right. But when we left MSU, little did we know that she tied a string to our hearts. We have moved to the farthest places on earth, but MSU doesn’t allow us to forget her. Every now and then, she tugs the string, reminding us not to forget her, in essence, not to forget where we came from. So here we are, decades after graduation, thousand of miles away, and still, the memories are vivid, like it was just yesterday.

I echo Celia Lavilla’s wish to have learned the Maranao language. And to be honest, I didn’t have any desire back then. I wished was forced to learn Maranao, because it would have been the right thing to do and many of us would have been thankful. I hear the same from my children who now blamed me for not forcing them to learn Bisaya. They now say, that I should have made it mandatory. It would have been easy too since my parents lived with me for 17 years. I regret this too. I have a 2 ½ grandson – maybe its not too late.

Ben’s article about looking for places to eat reminded me of John’s favorite Chinese restaurant in Iligan…can’t remember the name. This old Chinese guy was the nicest guy. He felt sorry for John so every Saturday morning, this old Chinese guy used to cook American breakfast for John – the whole works – toasted and buttered white bread, sunny side up eggs, chorizo, and a thermos full of coffee. I would get hot rice and banana catsup with the chorizo. The sunny side up eggs was yummy sprinkled with big, coarse, unbleached sea salt, smothered all over hot rice. We would order pancit canton to go (as bringdorm) and pick it up after bowling and movie, back to MSU that afternoon. Sometimes, we would finish our chores early in Iligan and while waiting for the MSU bus, John would drink beer with barbecued chicken cooked right there (at the street).

Wow, seemed like centuries ago. Have a nice week guys.