I am Happy.

Rewind to the year 1995 and I was an Atenean high school student, desperately memorizing the last stanza of the Xavier Pledge. Students were slinking back into the safety of their classrooms like sea anemones to rocks at low tide. Word was spreading like wildfire: Fr. Ampil, for the next few weeks, will be walking imperiously around the campus, snatching students like so much ripe apples from an orchard and making them recite the Pledge. Anyone not being able to recite the damn thing by heart will be shot where he stood.

Those weeks were terrifying. The Gestapo treatment was so effective that now, 13 years later, I can still remember the last two lines:

"To give meaning to the lives of others.... .... and with that, I will have given meaning to my own."

Oddly enough, the lines grew on me. So much that at one time, I drew blood for my beliefs. My knuckles still has scars from that event. I am not proud of it but sometimes one needs to do something for other people to wake up.

I am proud however, when best friends say "you had a part in molding me." I am proud that my wife is not the same person she was when we first met, so adamant I am that she become a devourer of knowledge (lol!) like me.

I am also happy that I imparted something to someone. It is my hope that in the immediate future (Whoa! Oxymoron?!) , I'd see changes.

To that person, thank you for sharing, thank you for listening; you made me feel alive in a different way that brought back memories of bygone years. I'll never forget. I hope I did something meaningful for you too. Thanks.










"Shallow." Solanthar Ilitha'knos, the Hammer of Praetoria, stood on a hill, his metallic legions spread out behind him. "All they ever stood for, is to destroy and defile. No life, no meaning." Below, demons amassed, a gibbering wave of corruption that whispered promises of pleasure and suffering.

The wizard-king put on his battlecrown with his left hand. The right --- still wrapped with the colossal Gauntlet of Titan Strength --- gripped Shadowsmite.

"Kahailakk!" He spoke the word of summoning and a hundred archangels appeared overhead, their Gigablades humming.

"FOR THE LIGHT! AND FOR PRAETORIA!" He charged, his midnight blue armor and white cape shining in the midday sun. The army made up of celestial beings and gnome-made constructs speared headlong into the dark wall, disintegrating everything it touched...