reading miss jing

My one-sided love affair with Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo began when Trisha lent me her copy of Likhaan. Being practically incapable of comprehending poetry, I immediately turned to the short stories section, stumbling into The Art of Understatement and emerging from the experience hooked. That story... was very much unlike everything I had previously read. Although it was slow-paced relative to, say, Meg Cabot, and very ordinary, as if the story was just being retold by a friend who heard it from a friend, it transported me. After reading it I paused, book in hand, digesting the last line. And then came that soft "aaah" of realization, a reaction that would have, had I been in my French 11 class, prompted Sir Nogoy to wonder aloud how many cows there were in his classroom.

I can't say that I became a huge fan of Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo after reading that short piece. For a few months, I ventured into other things to entertain myself *fanfiction, ehem, fanfiction* so I wasn't able to read a lot of 'quality' literature. Then one lazy evening, as I wandered along the aisles of National Bookstore in SM North, I saw a book with a beautiful cover on the Filipino lit shelf. Given that most of the books displayed on that particular shelf have ugly, peeling covers, that particular novel stood out easily.

It was called Catch a Falling Star, and at first, I was too busy humming the song with the same title to take note of its author's name. But when I finally saw who had written it...

I bought it without hesitation. A few days later I finished reading it, loving it so much that I recommended it to my roommate Joyce. While she was reading it, I stalked Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo online and discovered *gasp* that she was on Facebook. Shortly after we became "friends" - the period during which I was waiting for her to confirm my invitation agitated me greatly for some reason - Joyce finished reading the novel and joined my raving, and together we discussed the implied ending of one of the stories, The Woman in the Apple-Green Dress. With Joyce adding Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo on Facebook, our fanaticism became official. Or maybe I'm the only one breaking into sweat whenever I see an update about her on my Home page?

I'm still waiting for Joyce to PM Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo regarding The Woman in the Apple-Green Dress. (Because, no, we still don't get it.) I told myself that while waiting for 'the truth' I'd drop by UP Press during the sale so I could get a copy of Recuerdo. But March, wretched hell month, got in the way, so now I'm waiting for finals week to end. In the meantime, I'm content stalking Miss Jing on Facebook. She doesn't know I exist, but what the hell. I've finally found my favorite writer.