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WAYWARD AND FANCIFUL: Summer off

DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/29 April) — I tried to beat the automatic sliding doors that let out deplaning passengers from the Davao International Airport. Unfortunately, maybe those doors are calibrated to sense someone with a bigger mass than half-pint me. It closed just as I was going through, effectively pinning me for a moment before opening up again. I registered the shock on the face of the lady guard as I extricated myself from my temporary captivity. Behind me, an amused voice said,

“What? – You’re going through walls now?”

I turned around to find our university president laughing at me. We had shared the same flight out of Manila and did not know it. Just my luck to be caught in a tangle – the kind that has the technophobe in me convinced that technology is out to get me.

I was happy to leave Manila and the inconvenience of today when to please Obama, the capital had to make things just a little harder for the rest of us. Good thing I spent much of this day cloistered at the conference room of the Philippine Social Sciences Center along Commonwealth where we usually held the monthly board meeting of the Psychological Association of the Philippines. Today, we had a lot on our agenda in preparation for the national conference in Cagayan de Oro this August. We also fleshed out amendments to our by-laws to comply with the comments of the Professional Regulatory Board.

I flew to Manila last night, enduring hours of delay caused by Obama coming to Manila also. They only let our plane leave just as the state dinner in his honor was wrapping up. It was past midnight when I landed and I had to beg a Boholano taxi driver to drive me home to my sister. I barely got some sleep before it was time to hurry off to the board meeting. So, yeah, if I could go through walls, I would.

I really am on summer off, but it seems to me that my dance card is filled till I have to report back to work. I’ve actually taken to putting my phone on silent mode so I could read the summons at leisure and not jump at anyone’s beck and call.

Right – I’ll get to you as soon as I can.

Meanwhile, there’s that rido forum tomorrow, and then am off to Zamboanga. When I come back, am leaving for the 2014 conference of the Asian Congress of Applied Psychology in Singapore. I’ll stop by Iloilo to see to my daughter’s college registration before coming home for Steve Fundador’s birthday lunch. Then I’ll do my bit for the MindaNews Summer Institute of Journalism before – if we’re lucky – taking a break with the family somewhere only someone with more conviction would want to follow.

Sweet, sweltering summer sweat. Man, ever wonder why we have to run ourselves ragged before we can convince ourselves we need some time off? (Wayward and Fanciful is Gail Ilagan’s column for MindaViews, the opinion section of MindaNews. Ilagan teaches Social Justice, Family Sociology, Theories of Socialization and Psychology at the Ateneo de Davao University where she is also the associate editor of Tambara. You may send comments to gail.ilagan@gmail.com. This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it “Send at the risk of a reply,” she says.)

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