DOWN SOUTH
Downtime
Supergirl is back. Traveling seemingly at the speed of light, I wrote my dissertation in five weeks.
My paper is the first study on combat stress among active troops in the Philippines. Beginning late August, I started executing a protocol I designed to 1)assess the psychological readiness of troops belonging to the largest, most engaged combat division of the Philippine Army; 2)evaluate the psychological impact and sequelae of the participation of these troops to the 2008 pursuit operations; 3)identify soldiers at risk of developing full blown posttraumatic stress disorder from index trauma events in their cumulative combat exposure; 4)design, pilot and evaluate the effectiveness of an abbreviated narrative therapy module as early intervention; and 5)design and recommend a pre-deployment combat stress inoculation module.
Six months, at least. But let’s see if we could cut that in half because I thrive on beep-beep stretches when I get in the groove. And so, by the time Christmas rolled in, I had all my data in. I let the pieces roll around and settle over the break.
At the start of the year, I sat me down in front of my hardy PC and typed out 200 pages. For the better part of five weeks, my link to the world out there came down to my cellphone and landline. Oh, I did stop now and then. In the dead of the night, I’d go to the kitchen to check if the cooking oil was asleep already. If it wasn’t, it was back to the PC for me.
By the 9th day of February, five chapters had been reviewed and ready for the printer. I promptly turned the manuscript in to my mentor, Dr. Orange Lozada. She stayed up all night reading it. She said she couldn’t stop. The next day, she texted me to have it circulated among my reviewers. So I did.
The university had my defense scheduled for the 26th. That was okay. My learned professors could review my work while I set about getting ready for Bob’s book launch at my home institution. Except that, the university kept moving my defense date earlier. First, Amy called to say 24th. Then she called again to say 19th.
Gee, some people do know how to put the pressure on, I joked. Amy knew I was running a book launch on the 19th and that we were expecting the Defense Secretary and an array of stars on some men’s collars. She also knew I was on my one-woman army mode for that event. But what the heck – bring it on, I say.
Then, on the 13th, she called to say the panel agreed to meet and deliberate on my dissertation on the 16th. There went my Valentine. I spent the better part of it preparing the presentation slides.
Dr. Justina Bajo chaired my panel. She said the narratives of the index trauma events made her cry. It also jerked empathetic tears from Dr. Marlina Lacuesta. Dr. Aime Guarino asked if it was okay to keep my manuscript and if I could do a presentation this summer at a convention she was running. Dr. Nieto Vitto and Dr. Marleonie Bauyot gave me minor points to improve – format and statistics.
The panel gave me a flat one. Dodoy, my number one fan, is not at all surprised. Twenty-eight years later, he still remembers my NCEE and UPCAT scores. These days, he’s waiting in line to be the first one the buy War Wounded, the book version of my dissertation. Dodoy knows that am coming at peace psychology with first the need to understand what war does to men.
Yeah, but what about Valentine?
Well, see – there was this bus that came down the highway some days later. I got on it and found my love waiting at the end of the 7-hour ride. Twenty years ago, this man stood outside my window and belted out “Each day with you becomes a Valentine.”
I guess he really meant it because that was what it was. On a hot tub. In a town where we switched our cellphones off and pretended we did not know anybody.
Coming home the next night, I watched him chase our girls at patintero under the light of the full moon. Nobody I know still does that. I played a while, too. But I was really done with beep-beep for the moment. I figured it’s time to stop so my world could catch up with me. Under the gentle moonshine and watching my husband and girls laughing at tag, it hit me that I run far and fast sometimes, but I always run home to me.
