It was another rainy day. But unlike any other day, this one was different for some reason. People were ecstatic; the streets were clogged with shoppers and pedestrians while traffic soared like one this city has never seen before. The merry holiday season was upon us all. It was supposed to be a happy day. It was supposed to be the start of a two-week orgy that would either end with the apocalypse or the start of classes for the New Year (no difference between the two situations, mind you). My friends were coming back from their liberated life away from this city to celebrate the season in their usual way of getting drunk and playing the latest computer games from dusk till dawn. One would think that I'd be enjoying myself with all these in mind; maybe even start buying all those presents with God-knows what money I had saved over the last few weeks. But I wasn't the least bit merry. For you see, that day was to be the start of the worst ever holiday spree this student would ever get a chance to experience. That was the day I found out that I had pneumonia.

     I was frustrated, mad and delirious. Everything I saw irritated me. The scent of hot apple pie and roasted ham in the kitchen was supposed to bring out the cheerful mood in everyone in the house, maybe even lift me from that horrid state of being miserable. But all it did was annoy me more. The television, with all its y2k bull and most boring movies to end the so-called millenium, did not help. Music, my source of inspiration, sounded like loud trumpets blasting through a child's just-recently-developed eardrums. The thought of spending my entire vacation in bed with a thermometer clamped under my armpits and blood drenching my nostrils while everyone else enjoyed themselves wasn't very appealing either. Did you know that the medicine they give you when your sick with pneumonia often include ten trips to the toilet and a never ending crunching sound in the bottom of your belly? I mocked myself, my situation and the reason why this damned disease had to pop up at the most undesired time. I mean, why couldn't I get sick on a school day? I think I asked myself that question over a thousand times, both while sleeping and being conscious, with no results. Maybe someone up there didn't like me very much.

     The doctor said I was working out too much. He said that my body couldn't handle the stress of jogging 30 minutes every morning three times a week, while doing 170 push-ups and a 30 minute Tae-bo session on days when I didn't jog. My parents say it happened because of the computer and how it made me sleep only 8 hours a day on four hour intervals. My own personal explanation circulated on the return trip from my PE class' campsite a week before all this nonsense took place. Although I wasn't forced to, I sat idly on the top of the fifty year old vehicle (jam-packed with all the girls) they called a bus while rain poured like there was no tomorrow. My jacket had been already drenched hours before, so all I had to protect myself from the unearthly chills and hail-like droplets of rain was a towel I shared with 2 other people who braved the wrath of nature with me. Ofcourse they had jackets and caps, not to mention a stronger immune system, but who gives a crap right now? I remember chanting to myself during the 45-minute trip, "You're stronger than this. You will endure. Now shut up and stop shaking." Too bad I wasn't. When we finally reached the Ormoc bus-station, I was literally soaked. Two hours later, I was all cozy in my warm bed while the scent of hot chocolate heated my lungs. My theory is that my body kept the 'poison' out of the system until it couldn't handle all the pressure anymore. So boom, floodgates open and this guy is sick for the Christmas break.

     The doctor might've been right. My parents might've put in a good word about my condition. Who knows, maybe my little theory was true as well. Maybe all of that combined brought about the sickness. But what I cannot understand, what I cannot accept, is the timing of this whole ordeal. Why of all the times in the world did it have to happen two bloody weeks before classes would once again resume its boring pace? I had things to do, people to see, parties to attend, organizations to join and a whole lot of room for my stomach to make room for. But did I get all this? Ha! I didn't even get to go out of my own room! Two weeks of excitement and chaos all suddenly transformed to days of excruciating melancholy and self-torment. Oh how I hated the world.

     But life does go on, even in its most sickest state, and eventually I learned to cope with my pathetic dilemma. Even after I got healed, that is, after 20 days of being one of the most grotesque forms of human life in the country, I still banged my head on the bed while thinking of the days that had gone by. I promised myself that I would never again endure that kind of suffering. Ever.