REMINDED

Had a short conversation one misty afternoon with one of my classmates in junior high. I was editing my composition at that time when he approached me with a question.

"What's your favorite sort of music?'' he asked.

"I go for r&b, pop and ballad. Any mellow songs would do, but not heavy rock. I don't fancy noise" my reply.

"Maybe you don't know how to read and understand lyrics" he contested; then left.

I was like, OK. And it took me days, and even weeks to understand both our points.

I offended him for telling that heavy rock is a noise, which I didn't intend to. If only I had known his genre, it could have been said in a different manner.

My remark was just an honest to goodness answer but turned out an offense in the end.

Many times we said things with the best intention, we thought, but we also didn't consider the other side of it.

In short, I offended him, so did he.

It's like saying- one's beautiful thought can be someone's poison if one isn't aware of the choices of words.

“Describe macho in one word” asked our University instructor in Journalism 105.

“Sexy, handsome, brave, flawless, manly, model, enticing, muscular, tough, and etcetera...” we described - mine was the word ‘tough’.

Each had to go to the board, and wrote down the closest description we thought - except for one student who couldn’t come up with an idea, and yet had a cunny plan.

“Ma’am, Jenny (not her real name) has a picture to show you to describe macho” a seatmate insisted. Suddenly, laughter filled the room because all of the students in the class knew what the picture like.

“Let me see” she said curiously, wondering.

Hesitant Jenny, blushed, still went forward and showed what she got. When she finally saw the picture, she almost fell off her seat and dropped the picture on the floor. To her surprised, she was able to recite the funniest prayer I’ve ever heard.

Do you really want to know what was in the picture?

Nothing serious! It was just a muscular-black-man in a bikini; he could be one of those muscular models in a magazine Jenny fancied.

We tend to be like this silly girl at times- we also run out of idea; we do things surprisingly shock others.

So let us be careful. This is not what the famous saying depicts- “Picture paints a thousand words” – or maybe it is, depending on the people around that approve your silly initiative.

The plain intention of our instructor was for us to be very careful of the terminology we choose writing any articles in the newspaper or magazine.

And my intention for this article is somewhat parallel.

But sometimes unavoidable circumstance comes leaving us silly if not aware. So in words or in deeds, choose the appropriate response to any situations.