Of phobias and quakes
Aside from not blogging for the past few days, I must be so out of touch with reality because I didn’t know till yesterday afternoon that a relatively strong earthquake, measuring 6.2 on the Richter scale, shook Manila in the early hours of dawn. Sometimes I am guilty of sleeping so soundly that I wouldn’t know it even if the whole house was on fire, and that is baaad for a mother who is supposed to be on emergency alert 24/7. But then again, I dread earthquakes so much I don’t like to feel it during my waking hours (see earlier post).
It all started when a big quake, measuring 7.7 on the Richter, struck the Luzon region on July 16, 1990. I was in a high-rise Makati building and the whole structure was literally swaying like a coconut tree for a few minutes. It gave everyone the scare of their lives. Afterwards, I had to cover the tragedy for my newspaper in Baguio City where the earthquake hit deepest. There was the unmistakable stench of bodies under the rubble and tales of those people who ran for cover and never quite made it. And until now I think that when I die, I’d like it to be oh-so-quick and peaceful, not prolonged where you have to cry for help underneath fallen big piles of stone.
Surprisingly, a search through the net turned up numerous entries for kinds of phobias, from A to Z. Some of the strange results:
androphobia – fear of men
anuptaphobia – fear of staying single
caligenyphobia/ venustraphobia- fear of beautiful women
chrematophobia- fear of money
philophobia- fear of falling in love or being in love
Paraskavedekatriaphobia – fear of Friday the 13th
hedonophobia – fear of feeling pleasure
Blogging since 2004 and recently married to Mr Z. I can't live without coffee....and brown sugar.
