Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

The third of four change-of-grades that I am taking care of right now (not to say that it’s final and that the failing grade I submitted WILL be changed, only that it COULD be) is Leonore, the daughter of my neighbor, whose house is just on the right side of my cousin’s (we live on his left).

She’s an engineering freshman, which means that she was my student in both Trigonometry and Graphics One. From my aunt I had already heard snippets of rumors that she had been studying in another school in Cavite before, but that she wasn’t attending classes and even caused her father to cry over her situation at least once.

Everyone was probably hoping that with my cousin and I in the same school, we would be able to look over her.

That is supposed to be the case if she does show up in class, which she stopped doing in the second half of the term, except for exams in Trigonometry and after I told my cousin about giving the guidance counselor a heads up about her absences in Graphics One.

My cousin tells everything to his mom, including their nicknames for other teachers and when we pass by the department stores before going home.

What I didn’t tell anyone was that I knew she’s smart and can get high grades because she was in the “advanced” class of all four algebra classes last term, sorted after the diagnostic exam.

Unfortunately, even though she was present during the finals of Graphics One, the file she submitted, just like with a lot of her exercises, was just the initial file given the instructed new filename.

Come course card day and even though I told her she was able to squeak by in Trigonometry, I had to tell her that I could not give her a passing grade in Graphics One. She cried in front of me and pleaded that her mom threatened to stop her schooling if she failed two subjects, and it turned out she already failed in Algebra.

So I allowed her to submit her finished finals plate.

Here’s where it gets interesting: my uncle now comes up to me several times, once from the window of my room, second at our gate, and third entering my room minutes after we came back from the Los Baños party, to ask about her progress.

I kept telling him she still had not submitted her finals. He insists that I fail her, so that she will learn.

What I didn’t know was that he told her about what we talked about, so that she sent me a text message once (and even called when I was in transit, but the phone’s battery ran out and I couldn’t answer) asking what it was my uncle told her I said.

One night my mom said she even passed by the house and left three large cooked crabs for me. Not that I could eat them, or that it could influence my stand.

But I will have to cut this story short for now. I didn’t expect it to take more than one entry like it did. Until tomorrow, class dismissed.