they say that while you can't pick family, you can pick friends.

what they didn't tell you was that like family, you can't pick roommates either, at least not in the UP dorm system.

this is my third year with w, my dear roommate. four (or is it three?) years younger than me, she has provided countless hours of entertainment, especially with her lord of the rings analysis, and innumerable advice, especially when it comes to what she believes i should do with my lovelife. w has become a favorite lunch topic, boring office lunches perks up suddenly when i utter the magic words, "hey, i've got a w story."

now don't get me wrong. i like w, she's cool and she doesn't pretend she's all high and mighty even when she's on her way to earning a ph.d. at 23. but after the third day in a row where she left her desk light on (and therefore off-limits for me) before she left, a girl who can't sleep with the lights on can only take so much. i just gotta share some w stories.

such as when one day, as she was leafing through a cosmo i lent her, she suddenly let out a large gasp. panicky, she asked me, "rosa, pwede ka daw mabuntis kahit sa labas lang"

brain fuzzy from reading public international law, i replied, "labas lang ang ano?"

now on account of my desire to be not too graphic, you know what came after that. having read the same article, i authoritatively replied, "of course. they can swim, you know."

w doesn't usually trust me, believing i sleep more than any self-respecting student should, but when what i said jives perfectly with margie holmes' proclamations, i am the bomb.

she panicked, very much so, because apparently, while she claims to be one, they've been doing everything but the girl, if you get my drift.

she doesn't trust my knowledge of criminal law ("sabi ng isang ph.d. sa physics hindi daw pwedeng homicide yung charges kasi sa labas naman daw ng house nangyari. kaya nga homicide dahil galing sa word na home. babagsak ka na talaga sa bar, rosa!"), she doesn't trust that hey bf is the father of the 9-year-old child living with him ("hindi niya anak yun, no! i-pa-pa-dna test ko yung bata!"), and most of all, she doesn't trust me, such as one day when we were discussing about marriage and the white gown.

w: alam mo ba kung bakit white ang gown pag wedding?
r: oo. it's for purity.
w: so hindi ka pwede mag-white pag di ka na virgin (yes, it also seems to me that this is her favorite topic)
r: hindi na uso yun. diba may time na ecru yung uso? basta kung anong gusto mo isuot, bahala ka.
w: hindi ha. sabi ng pinsan ko pag nag-white ka daw nagsisinungaling ka.
r: kanino?
w: sa pari.
r: eh di mag-confess ka ulit.

now since that was such a heathen thing to do ...

r: (di nagpapatalo, as always) at saka, w, hindi naman nakasulat anywhere na kailangan virgin ka para mag-white.
w: ah basta. ako nga ayoko mag sobrang white pero kasi pag hindi white ang suot mo, hindi ka na virgin.

we've had funnier, weirder, and sometimes, i just ask myself, why do i even bother?

i don't know.