instant noodles vs. starbucks.

"I'll treat you guys to one round. Your budget's 150 pesos," Leandro's mother cheerfully says, pointing to the frappuccinos. "It would be so embarrassing to have you guys sit there and order nothing."


I laugh nervously. Ellis is looking somewhere else. Starbucks. I haven't been here in weeks. And so they used to call me The Starbucks Kid. I barely go here anymore. High school has warped me to live on Minute Maid and instant noodles. Exams were looming ahead. A good frap would be nice.


"Um...here, vanilla."


"And you, Ellis?"


"I'll have the chocolate chip."


"All right. You guys go upstairs and get a table."


Ellis and I head to the second floor and sit down. This place is perfect for a review. Quiet, cozy and air-conditioned. And absolutely no trace of kids our age here. I sink luxuriously into my seat. Hell week ahead. I have every right to veg out before I get grilled.


Then again, I sit up once the drinks arrive. "Review time," Leandro buzzes me back to reality. We bring out our books and take a deep breath. This would've been more agonizing if we'd done it alone. Misery loves company.


"Okay, Filipino. Yung sanaysay, it has two types, pormal tsaka di-pormal. Pormal, it's serious, and deep yung mga terms. Nagbibigay ng impormasyon. Yung di-pormal naman, ano, parang kwentong magkaibigan lang. Di masyadong malalim yung terms, tsaka easy to understand." I laugh at my Taglish.


"So there's pormal and di-pormal..." Ellis recounts, taking a deep sip from his frap. I was cramming them with information overload again. It's a habit I try to put an end to. Entirely impossible for someone who does all the dirty work. Continuously, my mouth begins to air out everything I have learned in Filipino for the past two months. Leandro is frozen in his seat. If Ellis could throw a chair at me that very moment, I bet he would.

*****

Only an hour has gone by and we've covered two subjects already. My motormouth has never failed me. After closing our Chemistry books--which continues to relieve us everytime we do so--I prep them for the last subject, AP. It's more on the analysis front, so I opt to cover them with only the key points.

As I spend an excessive amount of time ATTEMPTING to explain the 7 scientific theories of the Earth's beginning, a man taps Ellis on the shoulder. He and his girlfriend sit down on the table next to us, drinks in hand. "Could you plug this in, please?" the man asks, handing Ellis the other end of his laptop charger.

"Sure," we all say in unison as he smiles to say thanks. I continue to explain the Gaseous Tidal Theory.

"Well, the gravity of a passing star causes several waves of gases to be torn off from the opposite side of the sun. Those gases cool and gradually become solid--I have no idea how that happens, but anyway--"

The man behind us with the charger stops me at mid-sentence. "Because less heat means more density."

He straightens up to explain further. "When the gases are torn off from the sun, they're still hot, right? And you know that a gas' molecules are very loosely arranged. But when these gases cool down, the molecules get denser, and that's when everything comes together."

My motormouth just got a nosebleed.

Somebody hand me the instant noodles.