Rest in peace, Miss Tara Santelices. May you finally have rest in the arms of our Lord.

FYI: Refer to previous entry or the link for the full story.

“Kararating ko lang galing Medical City. Dinalaw namin at ipinagdasal si Tara. Kasama ko sina Sir Louie Lorenzo, Sir Lito Jimenez, Ms. Taks Clarete, Ms Ettie Miranda at Ms. Rorie Francisco.

Halos mapuno ang pasilyo ng ospital dahil sa mga nakapilang mga tao na nais makita si Tara. Nagtataka ang ilang nars dahil ang daming bisita ni Tara. Di nakatiis ang isang nars at nagtanong kung kaanu-ano namin si Tara. Sabi namin ” dati naming estudyante.” Ang sagot ng aming kausap ay ” ang dami niyang bisita hanggang kahapon.” Isang matipid na ngiti at sabay sabing ” oo, dahil marami ang nagmamahal kay Tara.”

Niyakap kami ni Lila, ang kapatid ni Tara na naging estudyante rin namin. Pinauna kami na makapasok sa ICU upang tingnan si Tara. Dala-dalawa lang ang maaaring makapasok sa ICU at sa labas lamang ng kuwarto na may salamin mo makikita si Tara. Sa ganoong sitwasyon sari-saring emosyon ang iyong mararamdaman. Mahirap at masakit sa loob na makita ang dati mong estudyante sa ganoong kalagayan. Halos maga na ang kanyang ulo na may benda. Malakas ang kanyang paghinga sa tulong ng respirator. Halos nakalabas ang itim na bahagi ng mata dahil na rin sa bala ng baril na nasa kanyang utak. Kausap namin ang kanyang ina at isinalaysay ang tunay na nangyari. 10% lang ang tsansa kung maooperahan siya. Ang bala ng baril ay “double action.” Ibig sabihin nito ay maliliit na bahagi ng bala ay nakakalat sa kanyang utak. Mahirap at maselan ang operasyon dahil iisa-isahing tanggalin ang maliit na bahagi ng bala.

Nagpakilala ako sa kanyang ina at sinabi ko na ako ang teacher-in-charge (IV-3 batch 2003) ni Tara. Tinanong ko siya kung ano ba talaga ang nangyari. Iba kasi ang mga naglalabasang balita.

Siya namang dating ni Joee, bestfriend ni Tara. Isinalaysay ni Joee ang tunay na nangyari. Birthday ni Tara ng Agosto 6. Nag-text sa kanya si Tara na magkita sa “Burger King” sa Marcos Highway. Galing pa si Joee sa CSB, Taft Ave. Napagkasunduan nilang hintayin ang 12:00 ng madaling araw upang ipagdiwang ang 23 kaarawan ni Tara. Matapos ang 12:00 ng madaling araw ay sumakay sila ng dyip pauwi ng Cainta, Rizal. Sila lang ang sakay ng dyip. Pahinto-hinto ang dyip upang magsakay ng pasahero. Hanggang may isang lalaki na sumakay sa dyip na umupo sa tabi ni Tara sa bandang hulihan. Pababa ang lalaki ng agawin ang bag ni Tara. Naghatakan sila sa bag. Nakarinig na lang ng putok si Joee na nakaupo sa tabi ni Tara. Nang tingnan niya si Tara, ito pala ang nabaril at sa ulo mismo. Sinabi ni Joee sa driver na dalhin sila sa malapit na ospital. Bago pa sila makarating sa malapit na klinika ay binaba pa isa-isa ang mga pasahero. Halos isang oras bago sila nakarating. Pagkahatid sa klinika ay iniwan na sila ng drayber. Tinanggihan ng klinika na tanggapin si Tara dahil hindi nila kayang gamutin. Naghintay pa si Joee ng mahabang sandali upang tulungan sila ng mga nars na tumawag ng taxi at dalhin sa Eulogio “Amang ” Rodriguez Hospital si Tara. Isipin na lang na 5′ 2 ang taas ni Joee at siya pa ang nagbuhat kay Tara. Di na makausap ni Joee si Tara nang nasa EAR hospital. Tinawagan niya ang mga magulang ni Tara at kanyang mga magulang upang ipaalam ang mga pangyayari.

Nakalulungkot isipin na buhay na ang nakabingit ay parang walang pakialam ang mga pasahero ng dyip na nagpababa pa sa kani-kanilang destinasyon. Ikalawa, kung di pa sumigaw si Joee upang magpatulong sa mga nars sa klinika na kanilang napuntahan na tumawag ng taksi upang dalhin sa pinakamalapit na ospital ay di pa kikilos. Siya pa ang nagbuhat kay Tara upang isakay sa taksi.

Medyo masakit at sariwa pa kay Joee ang mga pangyayari kaya di na kami nagtanong pa. Pumunta kami sa waiting area at nakita namin ang ama ni Tara. Tinawag namin ang mga kaibigan, kaklase at mga mahal sa buhay ni Tara upang manalangin. Sa pangunguna ni Ms. Taks Clarete ay ipinagdasal namin si Tara.

Pagkatapos ng limang (5) taon ay nagkita-kita kami ng aking mga dating mag-aaral at TIC class. Nakalulungkot ang sabi ng isang mag-aaral ” Ms, dito pa tayo nag-reunion.” Sabi ko sa ilang mga dati kong estudyante na noong Agosto 1, bigla na lang sumulpot si Tara sa facebook at humihiling na i-add ko siya. Nang mabalitaan ko ang nangyari sa kanya ay tiningnan ko ang kanyang facebook profile. Sinulatan ko siya sa kanyang ‘wall’ dahil kaarawan niya. Di ko alam kung ano ang ibig niyang sabihin sa kanyang “recent activity” na nakasulat sa facebook: ” Tara Bosch Santelices is chasing analog ghosts.” Ikinuwento ko sa kanila na para siyang may premonisyon. Ang sagot ng ilan ay ; “Miss, sa kanyang ym ay kanyang isinulat: “bullet through my head.”

Para sa iyo Tara, nandito kami …. nanalangin at nagbabantay sa iyong paggaling.”

HELP US HELP OUR AA BATCHMATE!

August 9 (Saturday)
Bela Bar – Skies of Ember, Rubber Inc., Elemento, Carnival Park, Archaster, and more. (more details on dotternus.multiply.com) 9pm onwards
70s Bistro – Coffeebreak Island, Lady I, slots still open. 7pm onwards

August 11 (Monday)
Mag:net Bonifacio Highstreet – in cooperation with RockEd. 6-9pm
Ten02 – Skies of ember, Scarlet Tears, Names are for Tombstones, slots still open 9pm onwards

August 12 (Tuesday)
Mag:net Katipunan – Gang Badoy’s Birthday (Open to everyone and will also be a fundraising event for Tara)

August 13 (Wednesday)
Freedom Bar – Slots open

August 14 (Thursday)
Bela Bar – slots open (venue not yet final)

August 15 (Friday)
Gweilos Makati – slots open (venue not yet final)

August 16 (Saturday)
Route196 – Open Mic (acoustic) and Open art exhibit for women. Organized by Lunduyan ng Sining and F.A.M.E.
Mogwai Cubao X – Organized by RockEd.

August 25 (Monday)
Route196 – slots open

Other venues without final dates yet:
Big Sky Mind
Saguijo
Club Dredd

I wish I could fast forward the whole month and the first part of October just in time for semestral break. But until I find the ‘Click-ish’ solution to my present situation, I have to figure out the following:

1. How to be a recording artist and the audio engineer in a span of a week
2. How to extract all the parameters for our thesis. And prepare the project proposal as well.
3. How to master the 2nd law of thermodynamics by Wednesday
4. Read 3 chapters of Rappaport by the end of the week
5. Present a panel discussion for Comm 3
6. Submit the taxation assignment in CE 22
7. Help with ‘MC in a day’ seminar this Saturday

And that’s just for this week. Come to think of it, the next weeks will be tougher.

However, there should be overwhelming good news to counteract my stressful weeks ahead…

Cheska will be back by Friday~ and

Congrats to my dear friend, Jamie for passing the MedTech board exam!

That means, I can tell everyone with a straight face that I am pretty much familiar with PHP and CSS.  Woohoo!

Special thanks to Stock.Xchng for the free use of the photo in the header and footer, Theme Viewer for the free themes I can choose to base my site on, and, of course, my Dearest for all the useful tools and tutorials. Talk about spoon-feeding. I really do feel spoiled.

Even if I pretty much like the layout and the site will stay this way for a very long time, I would still like to read more about PHP and MySQL. I got excited to see that PHP has a similar form as C — only that it is used for webpages. Since I’ve been programming in C ever since first year College, studying the conceptual part of PHP was like a breeze making me inspired to dig deeper in the topic. Kiko also gave me a brief explanation about the bugs in the ESC website he was working on and I was interested to know the details of it all. That means, I should learn more about MySQL databases and how to process them to understand the bugs better. Who knows? Maybe I get to help him on the website. Would that solidify my geekiness? Hehehe, maybe.

Now that site layout is done, I could concentrate on the actual content of the site. I have been meaning to write a post on the family trip I just had more than a week ago so I better start with that.

I really hope everyone likes this layout as much as I do. BTW, I already used a higher JPEG compression for the images so that it could load faster. It would be nice if I actually have feedback on the layout *hint* leave a comment *hint*

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still have yet to read on PHP to implement hardcore programming. Thanks to the WordPress Theme Generator and a few photo manipulations here and there for my header and I was done. WYSIWYG modules still works for wordpress newbies like me. Not that I hated the new theme, I pretty much like it. This gives more character to the objective of the blog anyway. Learning more about PHP would allow me to tweak the layout at the point when self-nagging comes to an end.

By the way, the photo in the header came from stock.xchng — the best site to go to if you’re looking for free images for your own personal use.

I now welcome everyone to my permanent home in the web: rishalopez.net. For now, I’ll be redirecting everything to the blog. If time allows, I could actually create a decent index page and all the other pages that I’ve been planning (photo blog, online resume, etc. — talk about ambitious!)

Lots of thanks (and kisses) to my sweet Dearest. I really really love my gift. And shame on me by not having any gift for you on our anniversary. Bawi na lang? Heehee.

Now, I gotta show this off to everyone. I have a domain! Yay!

I’m not really so sure how many times I have done this. Moving to another blog is like moving from one home to another. Nothing much to carry from the old blogs, though. I just made the necessary details and pages done before I could officially welcome everyone.

Honestly, I like the feeling of starting a new blog, it’s much like a makeover where I can start fresh without considering all previous events. A chance to reinvent myself is just what I need and this blog is helping me do it. Then again, I might revert back to my old ways. Not that I’m shunning them away or anything.

I really do hope this blog would be my last. Well, I am planning on getting a domain for myself but it seems more of an upgrade than a whole new blog anyway.

Hahahaha, starting this blog with nonsensical babbling. Is this what lies ahead?