Well, looks like Mayon is erupting again. Ha ha, para yatang nainggit sa paporma ni Bulusan.

Reading the article linked above as well as the related pieces about the eruption, it was only until now did I notice the person in the byline: Ephraim Aguilar. Apparently he's now working for the Inquirer after having graduated from Bicol University. Ephraim was one of the people I worked with on The Agnesian back when I was in high school. He was one of the people who consoled me and boosted my spirits whenever I would go onto a crying fit after getting teased and bullied. I hope he keeps up the good work and good luck on his future endeavors.

Boy, this sure brings back memories of my days as a campus journalist, writing articles while hanging out in the "office" exchanging barbs with fellow staffers and pestering my moderators with ideas on improving the publication that never saw the light (like a lampoon issue) because they were so out there not to mention the budget constraints. The best thing I ever did in The Agnesian was a well-researched article on the history of SAA based on the limited resources I could find, wherein I was able to trace the actual origins of The Agnesian back in 1950 (the grade school equivalent came around the '70s). It had always bug me that the volume number corresponded to the school's year of existence rather than the student paper's. When I made the discovery, I forced them to get rid of the volume number and in its place "Since 1950" (I wonder if they still retained it today?) was put instead. When I received a medal during my high school graduation for my work in The Agnesian, I felt I truly deserved it considering I was the very first of my batch to write for the school paper and that was in 1996, when I was the only one from grade 3 in the Junior Agnesian staff. By the time I was in grade 6, I was the associate editor and had placed 4th place in a school division writing competition in the sportswriting category (something I never really had interest writing about). Although nowadays I tend to focus more on writing scripts rather than articles, my journalistic "legacy" lives on through this blog. Long live citizen journalism!

And Siddharta Perez, probably the youngest to become the editor-in-chief of The Agnesian back when we were in second year (normally reserved for seniors) and the only person to hold the position twice (again in our senior year), now has a new blog.