I don't know. There's really something about fellow U.P. alumni and alumni-to-be that makes them stand out. Even in text messages, U.P. folk never fail to amuse me. To illustrate, here is a transcript of the exchange I (BA English Studies 1997) had with a friend (BS Biology 1996) yesterday as I waited for my sister to fetch me at Dunkin Donuts Philcoa. I wrote a couple of articles for his magazine a few weeks ago and he wanted to give me my paychech.

*Oklahoma na ini?
*Oklahoma na ini? -- Anik?
*Johnny came home ka na?
*Wichita Kansas. Basket?
*Cheke mo. U wants to see each adder in the eyes of the serpent?
*Under the weather is the princess who awaits the stroke of seven for her carriage at a doughnut shop in bustling philcoaka japan.
*Oh. Is charging me pala. If I left my fone and met u der, skeri?
*Oh to be surely. Querida sol del region, splook the dyslexic Rizal.
*Oui, Mlle Bracken. Quelle heur voudrais je te vais?
*Non comprend pas francaise. Tamagochi ba? 730 flight ko.
*Wichita tamagochi. Oskee, b der in a wyl.
*The princess glares at her French tutor as she awaits the arrival of Mutya ng Pasig 2003.

See? Though admittedly the exchange is on the flamboyant side, U.P. guys always bring in an extra oomph to most everything they do, text messaging included. In regular gay lingo, 'wit' would have sufficed to mean 'no'. In this instance, it just had to be 'Wichita". You see, the use of 'Wichita' is not purely arbitrary. Remember that the exchange began with 'Oklahoma na ini?' THe question in plain language is 'are you home?' Logically, the reply takes the form of a pun on another place name. The play with place names is continued further down the conversation with the use of 'Philcoaka Japan', a play on 'Fukuoaka Japan', to mean 'Philcoa'.

The exchange plays a lot with language besides place names. One question goes 'You wanna see each adder in the eye of the serpent?' Since 'adder' is used in place of 'other', the question just has to end in 'serpent' to close it nicely. There's a fine example of the added oomph.

Aside from English and Filipino, weird forms of French and Spanish are added in. 'Querida sol del region, splook the dyslexic Rizal' is used where the gay word 'keri' meaning 'okay' would have sufficed. 'Dyslexia' is thrown in to justify the inverted order of a line lifted from Jose Rizal's Mi Ultimo Adios. And to this foray into Spanish, the reply is a barrage of French. In answer to the French question, a short French sentence is essayed. The question 'Tamagochi ba?' is added since the writer's control of French is virtually non-existent. Again, the use of 'Tamagochi' in place of 'tama' is not arbitrary. 'Tamagochi' ties nicely with the previous reference to Japan.

Some personal allusions figure in the exchange. The word 'princess' is used because I have often been chided for being pampered since I still get driven to and from school and the office. To maintian the image of a pampered princess, the word 'carriage' is used to refer to 'car'. Even the sentence construction is changed to suit the chosen royal imagery. 'Mutya ng Pasig' is used because my friend recently moved to an apartment in Pasig City.

What is interesting is that this exchange took place in just about as much time as an exchange of regular text messages. See? We think fast and about a lot of things. And though gay lingo is admittedly imaginative, the above exchange has a little more than the usual. Had i been texting a gay othersian, my sentences would have been less outrageous and limited mostly to show business allusions.

The fact that I actually bothered dissecting a text message conversation and that you actually bothered making sense of this article clearly illustrates that we do give things an added oomph. Okay, so not all of us may be witty. And maybe not all of us are flamboyant. But when it comes to doing our thing, we do it with oomph. We go the distance and further. Call it nerdy, call it strange, call it obsessive, call it whatever you want, non U.P. people will still call it bright. Don't you just love being us?



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