I like it whenever the guards and compound tenants are conversing at the lighted station between the small loggia and the studio entrance. I wish it would go on and on all night. It makes me feel that I am in the room of a cozy, lively inn.

I could never sleep in quiet surroundings. In 1974, when I was enrolled for an M.A. in Clinical Psychology, I and three students were scheduled by a rich doctor to stay in his beach house in Batangas over a weekend to conduct therapy for his autistic son. A typhoon was due to hit but I made it to Batangas anyway. Unfortunately I was the only one who made it there. Over that weekend I was all alone in the beach house. The power was off, the typhoon raged for days, and the nights were pitch black. I was rescued after the typhoon blew over. I swore to  myself that such a thing would never happen to me again.