Today, I received a surprising text message and a lesson on saying Thank You.

It came from my former student named Raymond. He texted me: Thanks Mam for being one of my teachers... Graduate na ko (I'm a graduate already).

He was my student 3 semesters ago, so that Thank You of his presented a whole new level of meaning to me. I promptly texted him back: Congratulations and I'm so proud of you.

I'm really so proud of Raymond because I knew what he had been through before. You see, Raymond used to work as a pimp for young prostitutes. He said his poverty drove him to do it. He remembers having to "broker deals" with very high-profile people, including young and old politicos.

One time there was this customer who asked them to meet him in some dark section of Cebu. But when they were about to ride his heavily-tinted car, they were surprised to see not one, but a whole bunch of guys inside. That scared him to death, and it was not lost on him that these guys had more sinister plans in mind than he could possibly imagine.

And it dawned on him that this wasn't the life that he wanted. So he went back to school at a Cebu university. Since he's good doing hair and make-up and is also into production and events, these also helped pay the school bills.

He became active in extra-curricular activities, and was even part of the school paper. He wasn't the most excellent in writing in my class, but I have to admit he was one of my favorites, if not the most, because of his disposition and diligence.

And 3 semesters after, here he is now one of the Batch 2010 graduates, who remembered to thank his teacher despite her many shortcomings. Congrats Raymond, and to the rest of this year's graduates, all the best!

 * Thanks to Raymond, I realized that I never thanked my college teachers enough: And so a big thank you to Ma'am Cecile who taught me about the rigors of writing and editing and to my acting dean, Ma'am Celia, who was the one who really pushed a very unsure and nearly hopeless me to go for the career that I have now.