S1L46 – “Place of birth” The debut of twins Glad and Gladys (Joy and Joyce)
Why not?” I thought. Alpha Section is a small class, only 25 “survivors” by the midterm, 5 had dropped out since Prelims. I can certainly call the rest who have never recited. I’ve already called eleven: Deema, Kata, Juan, Jack, Cabo, Hannah, Hilong, Carla, Joanna, Grippa and Julyrain.
It seems though as if I only actually intended to call 10. Deema started reciting from the day she was born! And nobody called for her to recite back then, either. Anyway, that leaves only 14 ‘uncalled ones’ and it’s a long way to go till the Finals.
So far gender distribution has been pretty balanced, 6-to-4. But I have to admit I’ve been—at the subliminal level at least—partial for calling ladies over guys, especially when I’m not so prepared. Women help me kill time. Guys are absolutely useless for that purpose.
Guys will answer “yes, sir” or “no, sir.”
Ladies would answer, “There are two competing schools of thought on the matter, sir. On the one hand…xxx…”
When you use the Socratic conversation teaching method as much as I do, the difference between managing a guy reciting and a girl “elucidating” is the difference between driving a Toyota Wigo and a Peterbilt truck. Wait for it…
With a Toyota Wigo, you’ve floored the pedal trying to coax whatever hidden horsepower still hasn’t come out of the overheating engine that is already shouting “Mutiny!” Your RPM tachometer redlined about 5 minutes ago but you’re still wondering if you’re actually going to make it to the top of the hill in one piece. That’s a guy reciting.
With a Peterbilt truck, your foot is off the gas pedal and glued to the brake pedal coasting down the hill, trying to scrub off as much speed and momentum as possible, tires squealing on every corner, and wondering if you’ll actually make it to the bottom of the valley in one piece. That is Deema reciting.
I’m NOT saying that women are smarter than men. They just try harder. Men give you their calling cards. Women give you their entire resumé!
So, yeah, I am partial for calling female students to recite, and I realize that THAT is wrong. I’m here to democratize education, to spread knowledge evenly.
Unfortunately, first names are usually clearly genderized. Not every woman is Joey Albert. Perhaps if I read their SURNAMES first, I can fight my bias of steering away from guys names. So that’s what I’m going to do from now on: read their LAST names first. If it turns out to be female, then it’s the fault of demographics, I had nothing to do with it.
“Where is Mister or Miss Ondafli?”
Suddenly angelic music filled the room and a beam of bright light shone down from heaven. There was an apparition that occurred right in the classroom: TWO ladies stood up who looked like colored xerox copies of each other. I felt like that referee at the end of the fencing contest between Hallie Parker and Annie James in that 1998 Walt Disney romantic comedy “The Parent Trap.”
Oh, no–a TWIN in my law class? Seriously??
“Hi, sir, my name is Glad! I’m present!”
“Hi, sir, my name is Gladys! I’m present!”
I have not been drinking (because I don’t drink or smoke) and I don’t do drugs. So I was pretty sure I was not hallucinating.
“Listen, you two. Your own mother cannot tell you apart so just allow me to ask the stupidest question anyway, being that I’m holding only one classcard right now. By any chance, would you both be surnamed ‘Ondafli?’
“Ondafli is my surname, sir.”
“Ondafli is my surname, sir.”
“What did your father do?? Press ‘control-C’ and then ‘control-V’?” I asked.
“We are identical twins, sir!”
“We are identical twins, sir!”
Great. Now I’m not only seeing double, I’m HEARING double as well. “One of you, I’m not sure which one right now, is named ‘Glad’ and the other one is named ‘Gladys’ so the difference between your two names is just two letters, is that it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Actually, sir, there are two schools of thought—”
“AHA!” I said, “one of you is definitely female and the other one is, shall we say, still searching for her identity?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Oh—but obviously the condition is not permanent, it comes and goes. Anyway, you are identical twins but I cannot assure you that you’ll get identical grades. That’s the beauty of life in this world. There are no two people, not even identical twins, who will end up exactly alike. Part of what you become is determined by how you interact with your environment. Unavoidably, you will react differently, as when that environment might include an inquisitive law professor.”
“Like you, sir?”
“Like you, sir?”
“You are destroying my theory right now,” I said, “but I still maintain that every human being is a product of both heredity and environment.”
When you’re pursuing a shaky theory, it pays to have a class smartass to buttress your arguments. So, of course, I thought of Miss Deema Niwala, the girl that might be described in the vernacular as ‘pinaglihi sa Google.’
“Heredity would be explained by the fact that you resemble your biological father,” I began to pitch the theory, “and how would environment come into play, Miss Deema?”
“Uh…if they resembled the family driver, sir?” Deema said, sending the class into fits of laughter.
I banged the blackboard.
“Excuse your classmate, Miss Deema there, she’s the product of either hereditary indiscretion or environmental accident,” I said, sending Deema rolling her eyes clockwise.
“But I’m interested in you two, because you are the first twins I have encountered in my entire teaching experience. And just for the sake of expediency, I think your being twins means there’s going to be a lot of commonality between your biographical information. So maybe just one of you answering is enough, as when I ask where were you born, where are you from, you know—” I said.
“Oh, we were born in different places, sir!” Glad, or Gladys, said.
I let the idea wash over my brain for a few moments before saying, “Oh, how wonderful! You are ‘designer babies’ conceived in test tubes! I get it! Your mother took home one test tube, your father took home the other one. They texted each other every day for nine months asking ‘how’s your share of our common babies coming along?’,” I tried to humor Glad, or Gladys.
“That scenario would still require two surrogate mothers, sir. Neither one of them would still fit inside a test tube after just a few weeks from ‘in vitro’ fertilization,” Deema interjected, finally with some sound legal content.
But it turns out the scenario was not really as ‘high-tech’ as I thought.
“No, sir, it was a much simpler situation that that,” one of the girls spoke up.
“Which one are you?”
“Gladys, sir.”
“Continue, Gladys.”
“Sir, our mother is from Sagada. When she was less than a week from scheduled labor, she took an ill-advised trip by bus from Bontoc, Mountain Province to Baguio City, because she wanted to give birth in the provincial hospital at BeGH. Somewhere before reaching Abatan, her water broke. Fortunately enough, one of the passengers happened to be a licensed midwife and so she helped my mother deliver my sister and me right there on the bus. I came out first, then my sister, we are spaced about ten minutes apart.”
“Owkeey…so what’s the problem?”
“Sir, in those ten minutes of interval, the bus crossed the provincial boundary near Mount Data between Mountain Province and Benguet, so my sister came out in Benguet. I came out in Mountain Province.”
“Wow. So you and Glad have different places of birth recorded in your birth certificates?” I queried, totally amazed by the uniqueness of the situation.
“Yes, sir. My mother and father had a big argument about it when they were filling up the birth registry forms at the hospital. My father wanted to be very accurate about the place of birth, my mother said ‘no, I want it to be less accurate, please!”
“So I take it your father won?”
Glad, the younger twin, butted in. “No, sir! Definitely, our mother won!”
“Your mother won?? You have two different birth place informations, I thought she didn’t want to be such a stickler for accuracy? What would your place of birth be if your father had won their argument?” I asked.
“Lizardo Bus No. 57, sir!” the twins chorused. The whole class burst out laughing.
“Oh, I see…well, BLESS your mother! She is an intelligent woman. I bet she beat your father into submission in their argument, huh?”
“Totally, sir!” Gladys said (now I know, the one standing on the left!) “In fact, she really wore him down that by the time they were discussing what names to give us, my mother told him to give one of us the name Gladys, then ‘bahala kan idiay maysa’ but he was too exhausted.”
“Two exhausted to think of another name?” I asked.
“No, sir. Too exhausted to fill up TWO forms, so he told the registry clerk at the hospital, ‘ikannak man ti carbon paper!’ and he accomplished two forms by just filling up one! Then he took out the carbon paper and just added the two letters “ys” to my name, that’s why I’m Gladys.”
I couldn’t keep it in anymore, I was laughing, and the class as well.
“I love your parents!” I said, “they are such practical people hahaha! So which one of you is the carbon copy?”
“I am sir,” Glad said, “just because I’m younger. Gladys’ form was on top, then my father took out the carbon paper to add those two darned letters!” the younger twin said, with a slight hint of bitterness, sending the class going, “Aaaaaaaw…!”
“Well, if it’s any consolation, I think both of your names are beautiful—” I said then somebody in the back, I think it’s Mohawk Guy, shouted.
“They’re also both beautiful, sir!”
“There you go,” I said, “that’s your provincemate from Bauko, Mr. Jack Makataruz, clearly endeared with either or both of you. Don’t forget what I said about heredity now…”
It was Gladys who spoke again, “I wish we could share your optimism sir, but it can get difficult sometimes. People would forget our names, but not our unique story. So what they do is work their way backward through the story clues to try to reconstruct our names!”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
“Sir, they go ‘they’re twins…ok… they have similar names…ok… different only by two letters…uhuh.. and the root of their similar names has something to do with happiness…aaaand VOILA! I remember their names now! It’s Joy and Joyce!”
“Hahaha…instead of Glad and Gladys!” I snickered, “well, it’s certainly close enough. But they certainly can’t get your surname wrong. I mean it’s about as unique as the story of you two being born, shall we say, ON-THE-FLY? And your surname is…uh…’Ondafli’? ‘ON…DA…FLI? right?’ Am I pronouncing your surname correctly?” I dreaded the answer.
“Not right now, sir, but at least we know that you CAN because you just did about ten seconds ago!”
About the Author
The author is a writer and lawyer based in Baguio City, Philippines. Former editor of the Gold Ore and Baguio City Digest, professor of journalism, political science and law at Baguio Colleges Foundation (BCF). He is a photographer and video documentarist. He has a YouTube channel called “Parables and Reason”
About Images: Some of the images used in the articles are from the posts in Atty. Joel Rodriguez Dizon’s Facebook account, and/or Facebook groups and pages he manages or/and member of.