After Game 3 of the ADMU-UST Finals last Monday, October 2, I emailed a detailed account of the post-Season 69 Thanksgiving Mass at the Church of Gesu to six of my basketball-crazy friends who specifically asked about the highlights of the said Mass, which included the speeches of our team’s 3 captains and coach.
Since I was writing to small group of people who were as diehard about Ateneo hoops as I am, I allowed myself to write freely, without even double-checking to see if my grammar was correct. (Well, at 2:00-4:00 a.m., who’d care about grammar?) I, too, didn’t restrain myself from inserting side comments and a few irreverent "hirits" here and there. Lastly, I took the opportunity to share with my friends the glad (and very personal) news of my acceptance to VSO.
A day or two after, I found this email on my Inbox, from somebody whom I have never met before:
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Many thanks, Pia, for such a detailed and intimate (among fellow Ateneans) report of the mass at the Gesu after Game 3, which was relished with your personal commentaries. It felt as if I was also there.
You really write well and this unusual talent (not many have this) could pave the way for success in your endeavors.
This was forwarded to us by [name deleted] who is a member of our egroup, mbasa, which is composed of Ateneans mainly coming from HS'65 and Coll'69.
Good luck on your VSO application and possible assignment to a developing country.
Take care and God bless. AMDG.
[name deleted]
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Apparently, some of my buddies forwarded my email to “family and friends”. And perhaps, in turn, their uncles, cousins, batchmates, or kabarkadas forwarded the same email to God-knows-who-else.
By Friday, I learned that other close friends of mine received my email—not from me—but from their friends from other circles. On top of that, I was sent a slightly edited version of my own email via the ateneogenex yahoogroups that same night. [*cue here the theme from “ The Twilight Zone”*]
While all this was happening, I didn’t know whether to laugh, or to be embarrassed, or to be irritated, or to be thankful, that a personal email of mine—intended for an intimate group of friends—got circulated among other members of the Ateneo community.
It wasn't such a big deal, really. It' s just that I found it really strange that several people out there whom I have never met in my life got to read about the status of my VSO application, even before I had a chance to share this news with some of my closest friends. Also, there were two or three "hirits" in that email that I wouldn't have made had I known I'd have a larger audience.:)
But now that I’ve gotten used to the idea of fellow Ateneans reading my email, it doesn’t seem that strange anymore. In a way, I am glad to be able to share my account of the Thanksgiving Mass with the rest of the Blue and White faithful who could not be physically present at Gesu that night. That was, after all, an experience that I wouldn't mind telling and retelling generations of Ateneans, if only to commemorate the faith, the heart, and the fraternity that characterized our team and our community in Season 69.
The moral lesson from this whole thing? Never email about the Ateneo basketball team and about your personal stuff in
one correspondence IF you don't want the entire Ateneo community to be privy to your personal life. Hahaha!:)
Labels: In the Zone, Small World
