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Our niece the fan of Captain America and Thor started first grade last month. Her mother was adamant that she go to a private girls’ school run by nuns, much like the ones we attended. Good luck to them because last time we checked, the kid thought Jesus was Santa’s assistant.*

So the child comes home after the first day of school and the perpetually guilty mom (because she has a career that precludes her spending every minute of every day micro-managing her child’s life) asks, “How was school?”

“It’s So Awesome!” the child shrieks as she bounces off to get a snack.

“Awesome?” our sister says. “Did she just say awesome?”

Thought balloon: Awesome-awesome, kurutin kita diyan. “We hardly ever say awesome,” we point out, “And certainly not in relation to school. She must take after her father.”

“I don’t say awesome,” her father protests.

She can’t have picked it up from her yaya, who is old and quite dour. We blame the Disney Channel.

* * * * *

Our friend’s son notices a bump on his arm.

“What is this?” he asks his mother.

“It’s a mosquito bite,” she replies.

“A mosquito bite?” he says worriedly.

“Don’t worry,” our friend tells him, “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Tears form in the child’s eyes. “Mommy, why do I have a mosquito bite?” he sobs. “Are we poor?”

Going by his definition of poverty, we’re destitute. Mosquitoes love us. In a garden party, we’re the one who gets the halo of mosquitoes. (It has something to do with bananas, we were told.)

* * * * *

Our niece’s report on Genesis: “On the sixth day he made man, and then he arrested him!”

That one we’re pretty sure came from Batman.

Consider their children’s books as noted in the Guardian.

The Weight of Disappointment. Yeah, tell them the truth about life as soon as they learn to read. Don’t coddle the little bastards.

The Revenge of the Rabbits. They boil Glenn Close! Aaaaaaaaa

The Visit from Death. Sounds cheerful. Hmm, isn’t ‘la petite mort’ (the little death) the metaphor for orgasm? No wonder the French act so jaded about sex!

The Alphabet of Anger. We could’ve used this as children. When we ran out of stuff to read in our parents’ house we had to settle for the Old Testament. Have you read the OT? Tons of gory violence and sex. Totally changes your world-view at age 8 and, ironically, inoculates you against the religious hooey you’re taught in school.

The Day Father Killed His Aged Aunt. They’re going to read L’Etranger in a couple of years anyway, might as well get them started.

If we’d read these French children’s books when we were kids we might have become a cool existentialist type smoking three Gauloises in each hand, wearing Vionnets from thrift shops and overthrowing everything. Instead we watched old Woody Allen movies on TV and became a neurotic urban Jew who wants to kill people spouting their putrid opinions in movie queues. (We have confirmation from neurotic New York Jews.)

We suddenly missed the corner bakeries of our childhood where, apart from the staple pan de sal they sold pan de coco, pan di limon, Spanish bread, ensaymada, mamon, and that bread with red or purple in the middle.

Never knew what that red/purple bread was called, but Margarita says its name is pampam. As in the 60s Tagalog slang for slut. (We’ve heard the bread referred to as pan de regla, which is just gross.)

In the 70s our older cousins’ word for slut was paka, short for pakawala, like “She’s so paka.”

In the 50s the term for slut was hotsie-patotsie. We learned that from our publisher Teddyboy, who speaks 1950s Assumptionista Tagalog. When surprised he still says “Ay kamote!” Which is more polite than the expression used by Tina’s ancient aunt whenever she is startled: “Ay p**i ni Santa Catalina!” What the saint’s vagina had to do with anything, we have no idea.

Speaking of bread and genitalia, we remembered Ambeth’s story about the time he brought some Spanish friends to a bakery and they died of laughter when they saw monay. But that was just the regular monay. The bigger size monay was called Abanaku and the largest, Susmaryosep. Hmmm, bread, genitalia and holiness. Very Catholic.

Photo of Bronx Science HS from the NY Daily News

While leafing through an old magazine we found this article about the Bronx Science High School. We didn’t attend the school, but the third thing we learned at Pisay (Philippine Science) was that it was modeled on that science high school in the Bronx, New York. Making us the children? wards? bastards? of Bronx Science. This article is about their principal, whose methods have been widely condemned but also praised in some quarters. Ayyy the obsession with test scores.

There was a time when working at the Bronx High School of Science seemed like the pinnacle of a teaching career in the New York public schools. Along with Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Tech, Bronx Science is one of the city’s most storied high schools and among its most celebrated public institutions of any kind—part of a select fraternity that promises a free education of the highest quality to anyone with the intelligence to qualify. Together, the three schools reflect some of the city’s most prized values: achievement, brains, democracy. Founded in 1938, Bronx Science counts E.L. Doctorow and Stokely Carmichael among its alumni, as well as seven Nobel laureates and six Pulitzer Prize winners. It has spawned 135 Intel science-competition finalists—more than any other high school in America. Virtually every senior last year gained acceptance to one of the country’s top colleges. The faculty has long been known as among the best, most beloved anywhere. Teachers have traditionally held on to their jobs for decades; some have come to teach the children of their former students.

Read A Bronx Science Experiment in New York Magazine.

Pasalubong from Bangkok: Bat sunglasses Noel found in a street market. Perfect for sitting in outdoor cafes and staring at passersby. Which we did at dinner. (We kept hearing old Stevie Nicks songs everywhere we went. Strange but much appreciated.) Unfortunately we can’t have the lenses replaced with our prescription so we can’t wear these glasses all day. They’re still a great statement, the statement being “Bruha”.

Found these at ac632 in Greenbelt 5. This is the back.

This is the front, and this is the interior.

You can wear it on two fingers. Clever.

Another thing we do with our Moleskine notebook.

Sorry about the previous post, a preview of our column which won’t appear till next week.

So we made the insects using Muji’s Lego bricks and paper set. You don’t need to get the set, you can make them with your old Lego bricks, paper and a one-hole puncher.

In other news: We have it on good authority that despite his accident in Nasugbu where he was competing in a triathlon, Fernando Zobel is still handsome. Repeat, still handsome, so no need to light candles for the safety of his face.