Day 05b: "Old Lady Lloyd, The May Chapter" by L. M. Montgomery. [Part 1]

     Spencervale gossip always said that "Old Lady Lloyd" was rich and mean and proud. Gossip, as usual, was one-third right and two-thirds wrong. Old Lady Lloyd was neither rich nor mean; in reality she was pitifully poor--so poor that "Crooked Jack" Spencer, who dug her garden and chopped her wood for her, was opulent by contrast, for he, at least, never lacked three meals a day, and the Old Lady could sometimes achieve no more than one. But she WAS very proud--so proud that she wouldhave died rather than let the Spencervale people, among whom she had queened it in her youth, suspect how poor she was and to what straits was sometimes reduced. She much preferred to have them think her miserly and odd--a queer old recluse who never went anywhere, even to church, and who paid the smallest subscription to the minister's salary of anyone in the congregation.

     "And her just rolling in wealth!" they said indignantly. "Well, she didn't get her miserly ways from her parents. THEY were real generous and neighbourly. There never was a finer gentleman than old Doctor Lloyd. He was always doing kindnesses to everybody; and he had a way of doing them thatmade you feel as if you was doing the favour, not him. Well, well, let Old Lady Lloyd keep herself and her money to herself if she wants to. If she doesn't want our company, she doesn't have to suffer it, that's all. Reckon she isn't none too happy for all her money and pride."

     No, the Old Lady was none too happy, that was unfortunately true. It is not easy to be happy when your life is eaten up with loneliness and emptiness on the spiritual side, and when, on the material side, all you have between you and starvation is the little money your hens bring you in.

     The Old Lady lived "away back at the old Lloyd place," as it was always called. It was a quaint, low-eaved house, with big chimneys and square windows and with spruces growing thickly all around it. The Old Lady lived there all alone and there were weeks at a time when she never saw a human being except Crooked Jack. What the Old Lady did with herself and how she put in her time was a puzzle the Spencervale people could not solve. The children believed she amused herself counting the gold in the big black box under her bed. Spencervale children held the Old Lady in mortal terror; some of them--the "Spencer Road" fry--believed she was a witch; all of them would run if, when wandering about the woods in search of berries or spruce gum, they saw at a distance the spare, upright form of the Old Lady, gathering sticks for her fire. Mary Moore was the only one who was quite sure she was not a witch.

     "Witches are always ugly," she said decisively, "and Old Lady Lloyd isn't ugly. She's real pretty--she's got such a soft white hair and big black eyes and a little white face. Those Road children don't know what they're talking of. Mother says they're a very ignorant crowd." 

     "Well, she doesn't ever go to church, and she mutters and talks to herself all the time she's picking up sticks," maintained Jimmy Kimball stoutly.

     The Old Lady talked to herself because she was really very fond of company and conversation. To be sure, when you have talked to nobody but yourself for nearly twenty years, it is apt to grow somewhat monotonous; and there were times when the Old Lady would have sacrificed everything but her pride for a little human companionship. At such times she felt very bitter and resentful toward Fate for having taken everything from her. She had nothing to love, and that is about as unwholesome a condition as is possible to anyone.

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** Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) was a Canadian novelist most famous for her Anne Shirley novel series starting with "Anne of Green Gables", published in 1908 and appreciated the world over. "Old Lady Lloyd" is part of a short story collection, "Chronicles of Avonlea", centering on the lives of various citizens of Avonlea, the fictional village in Prince Edward Island, Canada that was the setting for "Anne of Green Gables".

Day 05a: Revamp

Well. I've been so busy kids, I never get much chance to make blog posts as my Plurk account can attest. So I'll make a new resolution: just as in Plurk, I shall come by here at least once a day to write... ANYTHING. I hope I won't be gibberish though; I'm planning to make this my personal website. For professional (i.e. monetary) means? o.O

Fifth-year AdDU ChE student is Eco-Minds awardee

Taken from the AdDU website <http://www.addu.edu.ph/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=565&Itemid=210>:

The Chemical Engineering department rejoices with Lawrence A. Limjuco, ChE 5, for having been adjudged as one of the three awardees under the Eco-Minds program of Bayer and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The Awards Presentation Ceremony was held at the Garden Ballroom of EDSA Shangri-la Hotel on September 25, 2008. Together with the three Eco-Minds winners were the 12 Bayer Young Environmental Envoys.

Before the said event Lawrence and the rest of the awardees were invited to attend an all-expense paid live-in Ecocamp on September 19-24, 2008. This was held at Balai Talisay, Batangas City, to give them an “overview of the Philippine environment and current efforts of various sectors at addressing environmental problems.” The biocamp proved to be enriching since various speakers representing government, academe, industry and civil society shared their experiences and contributions to environmental preservation. The group also had a tour of environmentally significant places.

For Lawrence, this is just one great achievement in college before he joins the ranks of professionals after this school year. He is at present conducting research on a relevant topic, already on the final stage. In due time he will be ready for research presentation, here and abroad. It seems he is pursuing a career path that, God-willing, will further develop his potentials and pave the way for more fulfilling endeavors, for the service of the community and for God’s greater glory.

Day 04: Happiness

This is the taste of victory, and redemption from untimely death at the hands of family:

God loves me... TOO much.

Day 03: Putting my life in danger

Here I am tonight, in an internet cafe at 10:26 PM, where no one knows I am in. I am putting myself in various dangers: getting mugged on my way home, catching pneumonia from the awful weather (the only protection I have on is my flimsy, though nice-looking, purple jacket), becoming the target of some psycho with a penchant for hacking a lonely sap to death with a kitchen knife, etc. But I don't care. For the moment, I am free, and I am happy.

You see, I spent the entire night listening to my aunt enumerate her and her parents' numerous hardships when she was growing up, with a good smattering of critique for my father (a big failure his family can never forgive for turning out so) and for my generation (i.e. me). For the whole litany I felt like such a mean, small-souled being, unworthy of even the measliest of charities of strangers. I suppose it is justified that I should feel that way, because I have proven I am a mean, small-souled being a long time ago, although another part of me (the self-justifying part) tells me I shouldn't be: I didn't ask them to adopt me. Ordinarily, I would have listened to her and just filed her words away, all the time vowing to become even nicer (even though my efforts at being nice somehow seems to go unnoticed), but tonight I just can't. I suppose its the weather; this cold, coupled with the fact that our television went bust and I am about to sequester upwards of PhP10,000 this coming enrollment makes me restless. The house felt claustrophobic. The laughs of my jolly cousin seems more unbearable than ever. I had to fly away from it all.

Tonight, at this moment, I am free. No one knows where I am exactly, and I have just enough money in my wallet to go walking anywhere I feel like going to. Nobody is worried about me, for the time being. My only regret is that I have to live in this style of dismal, character-less suburban setting in the Philippines, instead of the sleepy Midwestern county in TV shows and books where there are stretches of woods and creeks lost among the domain of houses. That sort of place would have been much better for solitude than sitting in this rickety computer chair inside this small internet cafe. But I am free. That's all that matters right now.