Please please me

Today, I will rant.

With the recent events in my life, I don't know how to feel anymore. I mean, I almost got into law school, almost had my dream job (Barista at Starbucks), almost had someone special, almost blah blah blah. Almost, but not quite. I am always hanging by a moment, slightly tasting and feeling the high, but something always has to happen. Something happens all the time. Either I am bad at timing or I am just jinxed to the eternal doom of almost, but not quite kind of life. I don't know what to think of anymore. I don't know what to feel anymore. I don't know where I stand, I don't know what to do anymore.

I am not tired, I just feel lost. Lost in the moment of uncertainty. Lost in the fucks of life. Lost in everything. There's still hope, so they say, but I just wish it could let me survive until the end of the year.

One day, I will be someone else. I will be somebody I long to be. I will be a better person. Soon. But for now, let me be just this wrecked, hyperactive, anti-social 21-year old girl who doesn't know what's happening in her life despite all the planning and all.

With this, I shall end my note with...

When routine bites hard, and ambitions are low.

Frustration is Ze Bitch.

Recently, I've been putting a lot of effort in building my future--law school. I've been engrossed in turning my plans into actions that I forgot how it is to live life. I had it all planned. Law school. Scholarship. Work. I am willing to go MIA, to vanish from the face of Beer World (aka Social Life), and to become a walking zombie for four years. I am willing to do just that...for Law School. I want it that bad. I have never wanted anything this bad. And I have never worked hard like this in my life. Believe me, I have never been a Control Freak in my life. Ever. Until now. In college, life was simple for me--finish college, get a job, and save up. I thought of getting into law school (and even Med School), but that was just it. I just entertained the idea, but did not consider it as a next step. Until I had the taste of what it's like to be part of the Work Force.

That was when I saw the beauty of Dreams. That was when I realized that I wanted to pursue higher degree. Anything, just to achieve something. I was never an achiever. I was complacent and passive in school. (Blame it on my parents who taught me that grades do not matter.) I did not excel in school. I was only a member in the organizations I was in. I was a nobody. I did not graduate with Latin Honors. I was an average student. I have nothing but my transcript of record from Ze University. I did not like the idea that I would forever be a victim of the system. I realized that I am tired of mediocrity. (Not that mediocrity is bad, but try doing that for 20 years, you'll get what I mean.) I am tired of wasting my potentials for PHP13k something salary. I am made for something more. Hence, law school.

I attended summer classes for extra English units. I invested money, time, and energy to make it happen. I thought of strategies to make Law School happen. I applied for the Scholarship, got "accepted," and attended some classes. I worked hard for it. I religiously attended to my duties as an assistant to the Guidance Counselor. I became a different person--goal-oriented, control freak, time conscious, organized, and boring. I read the assigned readings with diligence and understanding. I read it twice for further understanding. Yes, twice! I learned to take down notes of important concepts, and to study my notes before the class. I became a diligent, competitive, go-getter person. But only for two weeks. Just when everything was falling into its right place, something happened. In this case, it was the Scholarship. Apparently, my papers were not processed yet. Hence, I was not able to enroll. Thus, no law school for me. I don't want to delve into the details, but the bottom line is, I was made to believe that I would get the scholarship. They led me on, they made me hope. They said it was a "Sure shot!" BUT NO.

I blame them for making me feel this frustrated. I blame their system. I blame them for making me believe, for leading me on, for using my skills, etc., etc. But I blame myself more. I should have taken into account the possibility of not getting that scholarship. I should have been prepared for that possibility. I should have seen it coming. I should have planned this Law School shit thoroughly. It was negligence on my part. It was my fault, really. But seriously, screw them.

Since I cannot do anything about it anymore, I might as well accept the fact that this is not the right time for me to enter law school. No matter how emotionally and mentally prepared I am for the nerve-wrecking four years in law school, I am just not meant to become a law student this year. Well, not in that school. I just have to wait for another year. It's just another year, right? What can possibly happen? It is not as if law school will go away. Law School is always there, waiting for my arrival, waiting for 2006-21683 to be re-activated.

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Do you know what happens when you get your heart broken? You overcompensate.

You do the stuff you don’t usually do. You study hard, you get active with a lot of community endeavors, you read books you thought you’ll never read, you exercise and make yourself better. You become somebody else. You occupy yourself with many things, thinking that you’ll get over him sooner than you expect. You keep yourself busy. You keep your head clear from any of his memories.

You run from his memories. You opt not to watch the TV shows that he likes. You turn off your iPod once you hear the music he listens to. You hide him from your News Feed on Facebook. You delete his messages on your phone. You throw away your photos together. You try hard to disintegrate yourself from him.

You wake up early to start a productive day. You work harder, you push yourself to the limits. You go home, a little drunk and tired. You hit the bed. You don’t have the energy anymore. You sleep late, and the routine continues the next day. You become a robot, merely existing, barely living. You tire yourself. You work until you run out of energy, until your body cries for help, until your mind screams “Rest!” You work and work and work and work until you hit pit bottom.

You keep fighting the urge to regress. You fight off any unwanted emotions. You keep telling yourself that you are strong. But in the end? The fact remains—you have a hole in your heart that no one/nothing, not even the greatest accomplishment, can ever fill in.

Can't Buy Me Love

Everyone has a price.

Mine was PHP 13,500.00. I was once a slave for PHP 13,500.00. I spent nine months of being a slave for money, which can't buy me love (as The Beatles would say.) I became a servant for money. And where does that leave me? What has become of me?

I got lost in the process. I got more confused. I lost my perspective. All the things that I have believed in were thrown out the window (as Sugar Ray once told me.) I became a massive bomb of self-destruction. I wandered without a cause. I talked without substance. I existed without a goal. All for PHP 13,500.00.

I was pathetic, yes. I became a victim of my own country. I became a victim of the system--the very system which I tried to change when I was in college. I became a slave, a person without a personality, for money. Money that can't even buy me happiness. And I allowed it.

Thirteen thousand five hundred pesos got me nowhere. It made me worse, instead. It changed me into someone I despised. I lost my idealism in life. I lost a part of me that I can never have back--humanity. I have turned into this money-making machine. Money changed me. And I hated it. I know that that amount of money is not my worth, but I still took it, believing that money is the solution to everything. And I regretted it.

I lost some friends in the process. I blamed them. I blamed them because they did not warn me about the real world and what it can do to me as a person. I blamed them for not giving me a heads up. I blamed them for what I have become. But really, I knew from the start that it was entirely my fault. I blamed myself for being superficial. I thought I could make it to the real world, unharmed and triumphant. I thought I could handle it, but of course, the Universe proved me wrong. I was too idealistic and too stupid for the real world. I was too young to handle such amount of responsibility.

I had been disillusioned by that meager salary. Then, just like a light bulb, an epiphany crossed my mind: The "mature" world is not for me to take...yet. I am still young in all aspects of my personhood. I still need to grow up and to learn a lot of things. I am not as tough as I believe. I need a retreat. I know soon, I deserve more, but not just now.

So, I decided to leave my job and to retrieve what I have lost. I decided to go back to the academe (to learn more, which I haven't done in college), fix my life (which I unconsciously wrecked before), rebuild my belief system, and reunite with my old retrospective self.

As I am writing this, I commemorate my 37th day of bumhood. I am young and I am broke. I may have no money, but I like the current version of myself. I still believe that everyone has price. It's just that mine is not as cheap as what I had bargained for.

Being 20 and All That Jazz

The clock struck 4:10am, and suddenly I am 21.

I felt a sudden thug in my stomach as if I swallowed a live gnome. I felt my gag reflex acting on me. I felt sick. And I am 21.

I thought I'd be 20 forever. I don't know. The idea of being 21 did not cross my mind until I realized that I cannot stop time. I thought I could be infinite, endless, limitless, 20 ever and ever. Until time has decided upon me. It was a bit heartbreaking.

I liked being 20. I was not too young and not too old. Just right, I guess. Twenty was the right age for me. It was full of angst, chaos, drama, and other shit I would rather not discuss now. It was a different kind of ride. Too much had happened. My ideals were shattered, my heart was broken (by different circumstances and people), my morals got twisted, and my dreams were... Well, I cannot remember where they went.

I liked being 20. I can get away from almost everything--from social responsibilities to personal ones. I can blame my age. I can blame anything, but I did not. Being 20 was more of an adolescent age for me than adulthood in a lot of aspects of my (non)existence. For one, I have committed a lot of risky behaviors (which I would rather not specify here) in a span of one year. Then, I was attacked (yes, the term is attacked) by human emotions--from lust to lovefrom helplessness to nirvana. I had too much of everything to the point that I intentionally forgot most of it. And then, nothingness.

I liked being 20. I wanted to stay 20 forever, but time has decided. It cannot be helped. Now, I am 21 and I am still as lost as I was when I was 20.