Dispatches by Adrian Conoza

Artwork by Adrian Conoza , Title: Idle Art Recently, I had a seemingly once-in-summer getaway at SM mall at our place here on Sta. Rosa, Laguna. I got that opportunity to get some strolling after staying in the house and sauntering Walter Mart—which is nearer than SM—for days. That day was our enrollment day, and after I was finally enrolled, I and most of my classmates went to SM. I haven't gone to SM for a long time. Thanks that it was enrollment day, I finally spent my carefree time there. There's the bonding, and the talking, and—at last—a larger and more different Booksale. Once again, I've talked a lot. After a long time not seeing or meeting my classmates, we were there again as classmates and friends. Then again, I unexpectedly dried my throat out as I have observed it before. I discussed a lot of things with these people, including the recent brawl between journalist Mon Tulfo and actor Raymart Santiago in NAIA; the competition and performances on American Idol ; A...

Author's Note: The article was started last Saturday, but I got busy the next day when I should have finished this. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the article. Mama, I hope what I've made is correct in grammar and understandable. I hope you like it. I'm grateful that I continue to grow and learn. It's somewhat amazing that I'm now a boy of 14 in the chapter of adolescence. It's good to see that amidst mistakes and failures I stay as a person with morale and a man having faith in God. What I've become today I thank, first of all, to God, and for my parents. And for this article, in honor of the occasion on May 13, it would be my mother. She gave birth to me at the 10th of June, year 1997. I'm sure it was hard labor. I'm sure it took my parent's—and my mother's—effort, love, and time for me to grow healthy and strong from the day she delivered me. She gave the name Paul, from the apostle Paul, to complement with Adrian, which my father brainstormed,...

At one unexpected time I clicked on my profile on Facebook, and a different kind of profile appeared. What I saw was the timeline that was known to many of the site's users several months earlier. Good thing my original profile was still seen while I saw the all-new timeline, but all would change on May 9. I preferred to wait until that day the timeline goes live, yet on that day—Wednesday—my profile was already changed. After I disregarded timeline for many months when people went on timelines and regretted later on, I came to realize that timeline is not bad. In fact, it is really a good upgrade for my profile. It is even a more organized view of my profile as well as a good appearance of it. But let's go back when timeline was something new on the World Wide Web. I first saw how timeline looks through an article on Yahoo. Upon reading it and peeking in at some photos I thought it wouldn't appear nice to me, and I'm content with my plain profile with the profile pict...