He had probably seen the restlessness in me, the desire to write what I truly felt instead of what my office wanted.
I took that advice to heart; shortly after, I resigned from my job and went back to my university studies, part-time and then full-time, as an English major. Going back to school as a 27-year-old sophomore might have been traumatic, but such was my thirst to learn that I didn’t mind the curious stares and giggles that came my way. Besides, there was Prof. Sylvia Ventura, whose classes in Shakespeare and Elizabethan litera- ture I eagerly looked forward to. Lorli Villanueva reminded me that the world was much larger than our school, and that, with daring and imagination, we could venture forth and make our mark in it. You knew she was an icon the minute you sat in her class. She was what teachers used to be and were supposed to be, and more: immaculately coiffed, impeccably dressed (and one, it was said, who never repeated a dress over the semester), perpetually behind a pair of stylish sunglasses. She had been schooled in New York, the daughter of a diplomat and a teacher, and was married to a corporate biggie. We sat in awe of her, some in fear; I felt like a schoolboy all over again, eager to impress the ma’am, so I plunged into my readings, dashed ahead of the syllabus, recited with such gusto that my younger classmates were probably disgusted (and some of them later confessed they were).
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