Postscript

By the way, please leave your name if you're going to post a comment. Just so I know who I'm theoretically conversing with. Wala lang.

On a Sunday

Today was expensive, but overall, pretty good. Well, aside from the potentially bad news I received this morning, which I choose not to divulge before Wednesday's confirmatory tests. And no, I could not possibly be pregnant, although from the rate my bilbils are growing, I wouldn't blame people for thinking that. Hahaha! I swear, everything I eat bypasses my entire digestive system and gets stored ASAP. Tsk tsk... Need physical activity...

Oh, by the way, I finally got around to making an Excel file for our bills. I was so obsessed about the 219 pesos I thought we were being overcharged, I took out all our bills since 2004 and read through each and every one of them. Conclusion: we weren't being overcharged. And two hours of study time down the drain.

In any case, I went to mass with my roommate earlier. I just have to say, that was one of the funniest masses I've ever been to. And then off to Red Ribbon to binge. And then to indulge my school supplies addiction. I'm so proud of myself, I only spent 375 on supplies this time. Yipee!!! Anyway, after Ngangi dragged me away from the pen section to the cashier, we picked up our takeout and went back to the condo. And the War of the Roses started. The heart of the matter? We 20-something-year-olds are ill-equipped to deal with teenagers. Particularly sensitive vain ones and their issues. Oh well. Teenagers. I didn't understand them when I was a teenager, and I don't understand them now. So anyway, Chi and I decided to jump ship. I decided to retrace my roots back to my freshman year study place: Coffee Bean Eastwood. My turf. Haha! (FYI, I don't actually call it that. It's an allusion to something someone we used to live with once called Starbucks Katipunan. Hehe!)

I don't actually have any life-threatening addictions, but the things I'm addicted to are pretty expensive. Word of advice, NEVER go on a grocery, bookstore or shopping trip with me. I swear, I'm bound to drive you crazy. I'll make you smell all the different brands of soap, shampoo, conditioner and lotion. And then I'll spend two hours browsing through the rest of the grocery items and randomly throwing stuff into the shopping cart, and the next hour trying to persuade myself that I don't actually need most of the things I threw in there. Same thing goes for National Bookstore. Although there's nothing to smell there. I do try out all the pens and highlighters and browse through most of the books and assorted supplies there. Bookstores, ahh... my heaven. Never let me near one if you know I'm close to broke. I'd trade good food for a good book any time of the day.

In the middle of studying, I decided to take a break and check if the books I ordered from A Different Bookstore had arrived yet (Day and Dawn (Elie Wiesel) and Grimm's Fairy Tales (the complete compilation, translated from the original). They hadn't. So I figured I'd browse through the rest of the books there. And chanced upon a copy of the best book ever---C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed. LOOOOOOOVE IT. (We read it for Philo class in college, but I couldn't find a copy then, so I had to photocopy it.) Half an hour later, I couldn't convince myself not to buy it, so I decided to just go ahead and get it. That's one more book to add to my C.S. Lewis stash. Yay!!! And the store manager gave me a discount card. Woohoo!!! (10% off on cash purchases, 5% for credit card purchases) He was supposed to just give me 10% off for the book I was buying, then he said he was giving me a purchase tracking card (To get a discount card, one's supposed to purchase at least 12,000 or 6,000 pesos' worth in a year), and then he handed me a discount card. What can I say, nerds connect. My charms still work. Although I wasn't really using them. Hehe!

Anyway, I was so happy I decided to get myself a Swirl card from CBTL. Cost me another 125. But it came with a free drink, so... Yay!!! It's a pretty good deal actually. I get a 5% rebate.

The best thing about today is I was actually able to get some serious studying done. Although I had to go home at 9pm before I got frostbite. And I just got an email that my Ateneo Alumni Association card's ready. So now I get a discount from Fully Booked as well (same rates as A Different Bookstore). Yipee!!! If only I didn't have to review for the bar... And if only I was rich enough to buy all the books I want... Oh well. Long and short of it is, today was a good day. I guess the rosary in my pocket worked. I should go to mass more often. If only the masses at the Gesu were held every Sunday instead of just on the first and third Sundays of the month. So many if-only's.

So there. Back to the books. I'm going upstairs to the condo in a while. I hope the cold war is over. It's really tough getting caught in the middle of sisters (one of my roommates and her 13-year-old sister) fighting. Or at least not talking.

On the non-event called grad and other issues =p

Now that the readership of this blog has sufficiently waned, I think I can post a really personal rant.

So. How was grad? Horrible. Sad even. How else do I say that I hated it so bad it actually brings me to tears? It’s not that the general décor was, well, let’s just say very inappropriate for law school graduation. Very…impoverished. The chairs offered for the faculty (The handful that showed up, anyway. At least Sir Te was there. It was a complete boycott, I swear!) and the Chief Justice were dragged from the Law Library. I couldn’t figure out whether the banner thing was made of tarp or cloth, or whether it accidentally got torn into three pieces or was hanging from a loose rope. In any case, it looked horrendous. The Chief Justice’s speech was long. Really long. That’s just about all I can say about it. Dionne’s speech brought tears to my eyes though. Especially that part about family.

Overall, the non-event didn’t mean anything to me. Actually, I don’t think I’d have thought much of skipping the entire thing. Anyway, the people I wanted to be there didn’t bother to go. They didn’t even remember that I was graduating. Except for Tito Iggy, nobody from my family texted to congratulate me or to give the cliché “I wish I could be there, but…” speech. Basically, it was a non-event for them. I don’t understand how they can demand so much from me and not even remember my birthday and my graduation. Both from college and from law school. I invited them to both, but they flatly refused both times. All the “We’re so proud of you”’s? Lip service. You can’t possibly mean things like that if there’s absolutely no evidence to prove it. How taxing is it to call or to send an SMS for crying out loud? And yeah, they totally forgot about my birthday too. Same story. Not even a belated happy birthday a week, or even a month later. All of them. Well, except my dad, my cousin Shirley, and Tito Iggy.

So here I am two days later, sitting alone in a towel moping, wallowing. Cried myself to sleep last night. Cried in the shower this morning. Cry intermittently in between. And I hate myself for being such a crybaby. I just want to crawl into a hole.

Add that to the fact that I want to strangle the stepmonster. I had to invite her because I didn’t want to hurt my dad. He told me to invite her. So I did. He told me to confirm if she was going. So I did. He told me to ask her to go with us onstage. So I did. And now I’d really love to gouge her eyes out and feed them to piranhas. I could also skin her alive, douse her with alcohol, and then feed her to piranhas. Or death by a million papercuts. And piranhas. First off, she was more excited about getting her picture taken with the Chief Justice than anything else. Actually, that was all she talked about. All she wanted to do. Oh, and the jewelry set I asked if I could borrow for the ball that she said she’d sold because she was broke and had to make ends meet… Lo and behold, she was bedecked in the same diamonds and white gold yesterday. And duh, the jewelry didn’t even match her sack of an outfit. Of all people, I think I’d understand not wanting to lend stuff. Just don’t lie about it and offer some fake sob story. Duh. If you don’t want to lend your stuff, just say so. People will understand. Gawd, I hate her. The only thing I looked forward to was a quiet dinner with Tito Iggy and Tita Nini afterwards. And of course, she was there too. In all her elementary uneducated (not to mention f*ing ugly) glory. Talk about a damper. She goes out of her way to drop hints that my brother and I are not welcome in her house, that when we’re there, we’re visitors. That the house is hers and her son’s. I just want to strangle and maim her. But then again, she’s already disfigured, so scrap that. She took a good part of my parents’ stuff to her house too! Absolute separation of properties, bitch!!! No wonder you flunked the bar three times. If my dad (whose taste went gaga after my mom died) didn’t marry you, you’d be a single 45-year-old fat ball of cellulite from the middle of nowhere with nothing to boast of but a law degree you barely even deserved and having taken the bar thrice but never hurdling it. Even when I was in high school and clueless about law shit, I knew you had no idea what you were talking about. I swear to God, I’ll get everything back and more. I’ll leave her penniless in the gutter. She won’t know what hit her.

And although I love my dad, sometimes, I just want to slap some common sense into him. He changed his shirt OUTSIDE THE CAR. In the parking lot. I was so outraged that he didn’t get why I was so furious. Nobody does that! And he actually asked me if he had to go to dinner with Tito Iggy and Tita Nini with me. Dad!!! If someone sends your daughter to law school, the least you can do to thank them is to show up at grad dinner after you’ve refused dinners and lunches for four years!!! Oh, and by the way, they didn’t even bother to bring a camera. And all the stepmonster was worried about was that she wouldn’t be able to get her picture taken with the Chief Justice. I so f*ing hate her. And no, she didn’t even give me an old used and ugly leather wallet this time. (FYI, she gave me a really ugly pre-owned black leather wallet two Christmases ago. Last gift I ever received from her.) All she’s good for is that, and I didn’t get anything. By the time I got back to the condo, I felt like my head was splitting in two.

In any case, with a family and stepmonster as supportive as mine, I have to draw emotional support from somewhere. And yeah, it comes from the most unexpected people, like Nico’s mom. Since the two people I’ve been unloading most of my issues on lately (Sands and Nico) have since moved away, Nico back home to Las Piñas, and Sands to Sunrise, we don’t see each other as much. But when I felt my demons coming, I couldn’t fight the need to tell them. Sands told me not to mind them, that people can be really insensitive sometimes. (Amen to that!!!) Nico, since he didn’t know what to tell me, asked his mom to text me. So a minute later, I got a message from an unknown number. I won’t reproduce the text here, but I still have it in my inbox. Let’s just say that halfway through the text, I broke into a sob. Well, at least I have SOMETHING to be happy about. I swear, I hate my life sometimes. If I wasn’t scared of my head being underwater, I’d immerse myself in the tub a la Meredith minus the suicidal urge. I’m too much of a scaredycat for something THAT drastic. I can’t even get highlights or a really rad ‘do, for crying out loud. In any case, back to the books. I think I’ll skip the whole trip home this weekend. I may just get involved in an offense involving moral turpitude. I’ll save my emotional stamina for my trip home on election day when I’ll brave my demons and rein in my violent urges to exercise my right to suffrage.

Hay… Life… I guess people really don’t change. I just hate it when I start believing that they will and they end up disappointing me yet again and I have to rebuild the fortress after the onslaught. This week, while some people came to know how many people love them and support them, I came to the stark realization of quite the opposite. And it hurts. Real bad. I’ve never missed my mom and my brother more. Now that they’re both gone (one of them constructively), I’ve just about lost everyone. I love my dad, but he will never measure up to my mom. And my full-blood brother JJ will always come first. They’re the ones who should have been there at grad. And they’re the ones who should have been with me on my birthday. But I can’t change the past fourteen years. I swear, I would do anything to go back to 1993. I could stay there forever and never grow up. But I can’t. And it kills me that no matter what I do, I can’t bring them both back. Because none of this means anything if they’re not with me. Life. It would be great if I could escape. Go crawl into a hole or hide under a rock or something. Now I know what a certain blonde meant when she said the world was moving so fast but she felt like she was in slow motion. It feels awful. Like trying to move and talk underwater. Sometimes I just want to pack my bags and move someplace where nobody knows me. New life, fresh start. Clean slate. Start over.

In sum, my life pretty much sucks right now and I really hate it.

Downcycle

Yesterday should have been the height of my insanity. What with Balane midterms hanging over my head, i.e. 5 units I can't afford to fail lest I risk not graduating with my batch or taking the Bar this year. The latter part is another story. Anyway, yes, yesterday should have borne witness to the worst of my moods, but truth be told, yesterday was fine. But today, ah today, today was hell for me. Nothing happened really. I'm just in a foul mood. I hate the fact that the iron's broken, that I'm gaining weight like there's no tomorrow although I'm not pigging out, that I've apparently lost identity and become someone's keeper (DUH. I SO HATE IT.), that I want to get stinking drunk tonight but I have to be up bright and shiny tomorrow for OLA... I could go on and on.

I want to get my own place, but I can't afford to. I want to lose all the weight I've gained in law school but they're so damned loyal they refuse to leave me even after miles and miles of road covered. I want to go home but I have class. I want to go to Tita Susan's in Baguio and wallow in my misery in pine-scented air while sipping tea from the balcony, but I don't have enough time to make the trip worth the stress and the expense. ARGHHH... I want the ground to swallow me whole and not spit me out til I'm sane again.

On Soap and Salt

Everybody has a story to tell. Sometimes, we just get so caught up in weaving the daily chapters of our own little autobiographies that everything else seems less imminent. But then again, sometimes life slows down a bit, and even the most adrenalin-addicted of us are forced to take a second glance at what used to seem so trivial that we just let it pass us by.

I left home for college almost eight years ago, and I’ve spent most of my life in this dingy and polluted urban jungle since then, only sparing a weekend or two every so often, in addition to the requisite vacations, to go home and spend time with the people I spent the first sixteen years of my life with. Back in college, when I had tons of free time to throw around, family time wasn’t so much of a problem. I could go home basically whenever I wanted. And I never got homesick. But lo and behold, four years later, I found myself longing for more quiet weekends away from anyone who’s ever heard of the SCRA. It’s not law school, mind you. I think it’s the realization that I’m getting older, and so are my grandmother, my aunts and my uncles, and I know little more about them today than I did when I was a little brat snooping on their afternoon coffee discussions. It’s one thing to know someone based on the labels he or she has been assigned since I was a child; it’s another to know someone as a person. For although they have their roles, they’re more than that. This is why I’ve been trying to get to know my grandmother, but not as Mama, but as Carmen Brown del Corro vda. De Yenko.

I’ve always known that my grandmother hates the Japanese and Koreans. When I was younger, I used to wonder why. Today, while I don’t share her sentiments, at least not in the same degree, I don’t blame her. She lived, and luckily survived without a scratch, through their pillage.

Mama was a young adolescent when World War 2 reached this part of the world with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Rumors had been circulating Manila even before Pearl Harbor that the war was coming to the Philippines, that it was only a matter of time. My grandmother, as young adolescents were, and still are, wont to be, was essentially clueless about the realities that surrounded the dark cloud knocking at our borders. News of Pearl Harbor reached the residents of Manila on a Sunday morning. At Mama’s house, my great-grandfather was listening to the news on the radio while the rest of the family was getting ready to go to mass. Mama was wearing a green dress, she recalls. Sunday mass was a very important family event that nobody missed unless it was a matter of life or death. As this was. When my great-grandfather heard the news on the radio, he went to his family and told them they would not be going to mass that morning. Mama protested, but her father had the final say. Japanese bombs fell on the Philippines soon after that. The residents of Manila were rounded up in American army transport trucks for relocation to safer areas of the country. Mama and her family were forced to leave their home in Sta. Ana to seek refuge with wealthy landowning relatives up north in Cagayan. Like most people, they were able to bring clothes, and nothing more.

Up north, life went on, my grandmother says, though the scene was a far cry from what we would call normal. American and Japanese fighter planes roared through the otherwise pacific sky in what people called dogfights. Everyday, residents heard bombs exploding in the distance. Mama and her younger sister Angela, against the stern warnings of both their parents, would watch these fights in the sky while their mother screamed at them to follow her to the underground bomb shelter that had been dug for their safety. This went on for years. They would rush to the bomb shelters when sounds of danger approached, and then when the commotion subsided, they went about their household duties. Mama would do the laundry, her sister Angela manned the kitchen, while their sister Lulu would take care of their younger siblings, mostly rowdy young boys.

Towards the end of the war, soap and salt became extremely hard to find, and very expensive. My great-grandmother would take her son Jess on trips across the north in search of the elusive things which were previously so abundant people took them for granted. These trips took their toll on my grand-uncle Jess, who soon caught malaria, but luckily survived the ordeal.

When the Japanese were retreating to the North during Liberation, they ransacked everything in their path, raping, robbing and killing everything and everyone in their path. They bayoneted innocent babies and little children. Mama and her family fled to the mountains to escape the tragedy. Some of the relatives they sought shelter with were not as lucky. My grandmother recalled how a cousin of hers was tortured by the Japanese and Korean soldiers. Two sheets of galvanized iron were heated over a fire, and the young boy was made to lie down between the two excruciatingly hot sheets until he died. His sister, who was forced to bear witness to her brother’s torture and death, was gang raped by Japanese soldiers. She finally could not cope with the mental and physical torture, and sought refuge in insanity.

In the mountains, my grandmother’s family struggled to survive. They slept on damp earth, with only thin sheets of plastic and umbrellas to protect them from the elements. Their parents watched over them in shifts at night, cautious of all sounds that could warn of approaching Japanese soldiers. They ate fruits off the trees, to fight off hunger and disease. My great-grandmother traded in their clothes little by little to purchase food, soap and salt. Mama recalls that they had no drinking water then. Her father got water from wherever he could. Most of the time, it was the murky kind. They boiled and filtered the water several times to make sure it was safe to drink, but it still tasted of earth. But it was either drink the earthy water or die of dehydration.

My great-grandfather heard that Japanese troops were nearing the area where the family was hiding, so the whole family packed up what little they had and snuck down from the mountains to the shore during dawn. Mama was scared that the boat her father had arranged to transport them to Enrile Island would not arrive on time. They were in grave danger, especially since they were of Caucasian descent, my great-grandfather was Spanish-Filipino, and my great-grandmother American-Filipino. After what was probably the longest few minutes in their lives, the boat arrived, and they all crouched down under blankets as they headed for Enrile Island.

When the last of the Japanese troops, save for the occasional stragglers, had fled the country, Mama and her family retraced their steps back to Manila. Before they returned to Manila, my great-grandfather went back to the house where they lived in Cagayan, to gather up the rest of their belongings. He discovered that the Japanese had ransacked the place and bayoneted even their pillows.

The tragedy that had befallen the Philippines was overwhelming. Manila was left in ruins. The air smelled of death and anguish.

Mama told me the story of Tita Cel, my grandfather’s sister-in-law, a pretty and smart young woman, she tells me, who, together with most of the Yenko family, opted to stay in Manila. She had recently given birth to her firstborn son. Carrying her young baby in her arms, she and her husband were running through the city for dear life. She clutched her baby to her chest, shielding him from shrapnel. Breathless and terrified, the young family finally got to a hospital where they would be safe, at least for a while. Tita Cel unraveled the blanket she had used to wrap her child as they fled…only to find out that the baby she had risked her life to protect was already dead. The young child had been hit by shrapnel while they were weaving through Manila, avoiding sure death from bombs and bullets. Tita Cel never recovered from the death of her first child, Mama said.

Back in Manila, Mama and her immediate family were reunited with her grandmother, who had opted to stay behind. She was alive, but had lost quite a lot of weight. Food was hard to come by, and she survived on the generosity of neighbors who had become their friends.

Political commentaries aside, to my grandmother, the arrival of the Americans was a welcome transition from the four-year onslaught of Japanese atrocities. To the common people who were just fed up with living like fugitives in their own country, it was a much-awaited breath of fresh air. And chocolate. And real baths, after having to but soap at such atrocious prices before liberation.

Years after the war, when my grandparents were already married, my grandfather met a Japanese businessman, whom he invited home for dinner. My grandmother protested, but my grandfather won that argument. Being the brat that she is, Mama provided the bare minimum required by common courtesy but refused to befriend the Japanese fellow, although she admitted that he was a gentleman. The issue ultimately surfaced one day that my grandparents had dinner with the Japanese man. He explained that most Japanese, especially the educated ones back in Japan, were civilized, and that the behavior of the Japanese in the Philippines during the war did not characterize them as a people. My grandmother told him that that may be the case, but one does not easily forget four years of witnessing such atrocities.

Mama still hates the Japanese and Koreans in general, and says it is an outrage that so-called Japayukis purposely marry and/or have children with those people after what they did during the war, and that Filipinos are so obsessed with Koreanovelas. Like I said, I don’t blame her. It’s easy for me to say that we should move on with our lives, that not all of them are butchers, and so on, because I didn’t live through the war. I didn’t have to witness the bloodshed, the tortured screams, and the sheer terror of getting slaughtered that my grandmother did. I don’t exactly share Mama’s sentiments. I have my own reasons for disliking certain races. But that’s an entirely different discourse.

Everybody has a story to tell. This is my grandmother’s story. Or at least part of it. It’s a glimpse of who she is, labels and requisite boxes aside. People want to be heard. Sometimes, we just have to learn listen to voices other than ours.

My law school yearbook writeup

Phew. The past four years have gone by so fast in a blur of deadlines and whatnot. It seems so surreal that we’re submitting yearbook writeups and having our graduation pictures taken again. It seems like I just did that for college yesterday. Anyway, here's what I wrote. Tell me what you think.

I’ve always had this dream to write the next great novel, a revolutionary treatise on life or love or one of those abstract notions that I love to ponder about when I have more than a split-second between two or more impossible deadlines. Twenty-three years into my relatively very eventful life, and I have nothing to show for this dream, not even a blank piece of paper that I intend to be the canvas for my intended work of art. Well, not exactly. I just haven't had time to sit down and let the novel write itself. Something always gets in the way. So. Why am I in law school? Four years ago, if you’d asked me that question, I would have said that first, I don’t want to work yet, and second and more importantly, I can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Both still hold true, although the second I now say with a lot less conviction than I had back then. Let’s just say I’ve never wanted to run away and become a starving writer in Paris as much as I do now. I do love the pressure though. I relish the torture, in spite of all my whining and complaining. It's your classic love-hate relationship, which essentially sets apart everything and everyone I love from the rest of the smörgåsbord. Can't live with them (sometimes); can't live without them. And though I may not look back on my law school experience with such nostalgia as I do the years I spent in college, I bear no regrets about the choices I’ve made, even the inexplicably dim-witted ones. And I still cannot imagine myself doing anything else. Except maybe actually becoming a lawyer instead of just being in law school.

Member, UP Women in Law 2003 – present
Vice President for Finance, UP Women in Law, 2005 -2006

3 days to vaykay!!!

I'm kinda on vacation na. Two hearings and Election Law finals to go. I'll be free as a bird by Wednesday afternoon. Woohoo!!! Hey, I have a question. What would you do if someone, itago na lang natin siya sa pangalang Grace =p told you, "Yeah, we can be friends. We just can't see each other." Hehe!

I finished Season 3 of One Tree Hill the night before my Partnership final. So if that turns out sucky, well, I'll know why. Anyhoo... Soundtrack is great. WAY better than the series itself. Lotta sappy lines there. And that whole slouching brooding Lucas look and his whole angsty intellectual crap and the mandatory opening "(Blah blah) once wrote..." is getting old. But I looove James Lafferty, so I'm good.

Ladida... Waiting for Nico's PubOff email. And dowloading a LOT of songs off the net. I discovered a lotta cool artists. Ladida...

Finally, happy days are back. Woopeedoo.

My life sucks.

My blog is beginning to resemble a blackhole. Hehe! There's more where that came from. After a terrific week off last week, I went spiraling down over the weekend. I hope it ends soon. I just made a lot of decisions that turned out to be really wrong. And the clincher is that I never learn. After ten million times of being faced with the same old dilemma, I always choose the easy (well, at first, anyway. Instant gratification.) road. And then I end up regretting having done so. Each and every time. My life sucks.

It's just another one of those days.

One. My favorite mistake. My worst addiction. I can come up with a million ways to describe my three-year (and counting) predicament. Three consecutive Monday lunches and I'm going insane! God help me. Further I sayeth naught.

Two. This semester is the worst I've ever been through by far. As J.M. so aptly described it, I've never felt so out of control in my entire life. Academics-wise, it's not so heavy, but with OLA and whatnot, dude! I've never said "I either want to die or kill someone" more than I have this sem! Most days, I just want to bury my head under my pillow and disappear. But the heat and the persistent voice in my head that says "OLA OLA OLA OLA" pushes me, quite unwillingly, to drag my ass out of my comfort zone, bust my allowance on cab fare to venture into the godawful courts and prosecutors' offices and end up filthy as hell from commuting to and from places I'd rather not be. Breathe, Grace, breathe. Arggh!!!

Three. As I said, this whole "Death to indigents!" phase really defeats the whole social justice ideal. It's one thing to say, yeah, the world is not fair. It's another to be FORCED and REQUIRED to deal with their issues and to have to take time away from how I feel I should be living my life in order to be able to cope with these impositions!

Do I really have to say it? I hate OLA.

More fucked up shit

For the first time in my entire life, I absolutely seriously hate everything I'm doing (except for Rem). I hate OLA. The very thought of it makes me want to kill myself. I hate it with a vengeance. And then I feel guilty for saying so when I meet with clients na kawawa. Which makes me hate it even more. With the exception of Rem, which I really like, and Pub Off which I'm neutral about, I hate law school. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. I'm the epitome of mediocrity. I purposely avoid any law-related conversations like the plague. Well, those that I don't hae to engage in, anyway. I'm not interested in the intricacies of the law and shit. It makes me want to puke my guts out. But then again, it's too late to quit. Duh, 4th year na. And quitting is not an option for me. There's too much at stake, my ego and my self esteem first and foremost. Yes, I admit I'm very selfish. But hey, that's me. Guess I'll just slug it out for the next couple of months (and then the bar) and figure out where I'll go from there. Always works.

Also, in addition to the minor irritation of a long overdue explosion of a domestic peace and order situation, I'm in this cold war a.k.a. minor tiff a.k.a. I think he hates me sort of fucked up misunderstanding and blown way out of proportion little shitty sonofabitch situation with one of my closest guy friends. Arggh. I hate my life. My life sucks.

Still in denial

I've been sitting here surfing the net and downloading stuff for a bit over 2 hours. Last night, I watched 5 or so hours' worth of Judging Amy then slept for 11 hours straight. Bad case of depression? Nope. Just rebelling. OLA is killing me. This is one case when the anticipation really isn't worse than the thing anticipated. If anything, the anticipation was a walk in the park compared to really dealing with OLA. And at this rate, not all of my 19 cases are active, and I haven't even reviewed everything. I've just been working on the imminent, i.e. the ones that are driving me crazy. What the hell do I know? I have issues, but these people have PROBLEMS. Real ones. Real BIG ones. Man! I almost feel guilty getting reimbursed for the photocopying I did for this one guy whose brother is in jail for a crime he didn't commit. But then again, I'm kinda broke right now, courtesy of that stupid hard drive I had to buy. Cost me a good P5,200. FROM MY ALLOWANCE. Hah. Well, at least the laptop's working na. Yipee.

New link

Check this out: http://kelvynstevens.blogspot.com. It's hilarious, I swear!

Ladida... (The nth installment)

Two more weeks of internship to go and then I'm off to Baguio. People have been raising their eyebrows at the fact that I'm going there sometime around the beginning of the rainy season, when, well, it starts raining, and all you can see is fog. Well, I like it that way. I love gloomy weather, rain, fog, Baguio when all the tourists are safely tucked away in their urban abodes and lashing away or getting whipped by their corporate superiors. It's so peaceful there when only the locals sip coffee serenely in the coffee shops trying to ward off the chill. Baguio is always at its best without tourists around. Just like when we were kids. When Burnham Park wasn't the dingy place it is now. When we would walk to church on Sunday morning and then stroll casually into town to have ice cream and cotton candy at Coney Island somewhere in the middle of Session Road or hike from the John Hay gate to the Clubhouse where you had to exchange your pesos for American bills or coins because the vendos were, well, American.

(To be continued. Partners are coming this way.)

Side thought before yosi break

Only in law school:

"If you're feeling naughty... file a motion to dismiss or a bill of particulars to the pleading you are answering." - Atty. Maria Celina Fado (2006 OLA Seminar)

Bwahaha! Mag-yosi na ako. Ewan ko na lang ha. =p

Tales from here and the hereafter

It's another slow day at the office. I just had lunch in the pantry amidst incessant partner talk. I'm trying my best to keep a low profile, i.e. to remain basically inconspicuous, as to both wardrobe and demeanor... I wonder if I'll get accepted here (or anywhere else, for that matter) after law school... Anyway, it's not like I want to work already. It's so different from law school. At least in law school, I can fuck up a recit and survive, get over it with a beer or two (or a really long jog). At work, I don't think people are allowed to fuck up. You have to be on your toes all the time. These are real finances and real people they deal with. Fuck one up, you're out. Or you at least get a reputation for being the one who fucked up. Gawd!

Anyway, the new lawyers take their oath today. Roll signing is a couple of days after the oath, I think. And that reminds me, WE'RE TAKING THE BAR NEXT YEAR!!! Holy crap. Hell fire and brimstone. I'm so not ready. For the life of me, I can't seem to remember what evil twist of fate made me decide to go law school. All I wanted was to write. But then again, writers, most of them, anyway, end up homeless and hungry, neither of which I want to be. All my idealism seems to have vanished into thin air. Law school sucked it all out. All it's done so far is to mar my perfect picture of the future with blotches of inadequacy. I don't think I've ever felt so goddamned stupid in my entire life. Well, at least now I know I don't know anything. That's a good thing, I think. No delusions of grandeur here. Not that I ever had any. I never had a superiority complex or whatnot. I just knew I was above average. Above average here meaning in comparison with the rest of the population, not my contemporaries in law school or all the others seeking a slot in the legal profession. I can't see how a UP Law education and/or degree gives me an edge of some sort. By the way, that statement is not supposed to reflect what I think of the College as an institution. It's really more of how I rate myself as a "law student", whatever THAT is.

So here I go again, wandering about, trying not to step on anybody's toes, lest I lose one employment opportunity. The whole being nice to everybody thing is exhausting. I mean, I'm basically a nice person. I'm just not used to consciously forcing myself to be nice. I can be such a snob, see. I can do smalltalk, but I choose the people I associate with. Who ever said I had to be friends with everybody? I like people who are genuinely nice but are honest enough to show their evil side (e.g. Chi, Nico, Sands, et.al., my fellow interns (Haha! What a term!) Cara, Kaye and Jelo, etcetera etcetera), but I thorougly despise people who obviously have so much angst that they end up hating everybody.

Hah. And thus the plot thickens.

Minutes away from our next coffee break...

I will never complain that I'm bored at work. To myself, I mean. I don't have to abstain from complaining out loud about not being given enough work, as I have NEVER (Read: N-E-V-E-R) done that. Duh. That would be suicide pure and simple. Anyway, I got to the office a bit later than usual today. As it turns out, Ayala Ave.'s closed. Thus the horrendous traffic. It took us an hour and a half to get from Katipunan to Salcedo. Half of that we spent staring at the Volvo next to us on the Kalayaan to Buendia flyover. Can't all the firms just transfer to Eastwood? Wishful thinking. Anyhoo, Cara, Kaye, Jelo and I are traipsing over to the nearest Starbucks in a bit for a coffee break. We've been basking in our lethargy for the past three working days, but none of us are about to start complaining. When it rains, it pours. The first two weeks here, I was so swamped with work I ended up working through Saturday AND Sunday. All this sans a computer. Translation: EXPENSIVE. And I'm not even getting paid that much. Oh well. All my hard-earned wages from this second summer internship (which, incidentally, is not required =p) are going into suits. I planned everything out. One set = blazer, skirt, pants. I'm getting two sets made, one in khaki and one in gray. And white pants. =p My white pants suck. I either look like I have a wedgie (when I really do not) OR like my ass suddenly vanished into thin air. Anyway, I can't wait to get my scholarship money so I can go shoe-shopping. My feet are just about ready to die from wearing stilettos to work everyday. My flats aren't exactly meant for the corporate world. Hahaha!

Hmmm... I've been telling my fellow interns (Yauck, feeling! It's not half as grand as it sounds. =p) that I've been getting anxiety attacks (not the real thing ha.) due to the fact that I haven't done anything since that trademark application thing. Was my work not up to par, thus the hesitation to give me more work? Are they just waiting for me to get the hell out of here? Man. I worked my ass off naman the first couple of days, and I think I delivered naman. Well, except for that memo I did for B.A. (not his real name). Now that was one PIECE OF CRAP. Seriously. Oh, and I'm getting used to the three-letter initials. If and when I become a lawyer, I'll be called MGT. Sounds a lot more lawyerly than GYT. Well, at least I think so. Comment on this.

Anyhoo, we're off to Starbucks. We'll be back in, um, an hour? Hehe! Feed me!!! I'm hungry. AGAIN. My stomach is a bottomless bit, I swear to God.

Working on a Sunday afternoon...

Yun lang. No time to write anything substantial. I have to finish this na so I can get started on my next memo due Tuesday morning.

A commentary on "Trial Practice: The Art of Survival" (by Atty. Theodore O. Te)

CAVEAT: Because people tend to take everything I say or write seriously, I'll state right here that this is not a critique of any sort. These are just the comments that popped into my head during the OLA Seminar. Nuff said.

(1) Never do anything pro forma, i.e. Make it your own.

Wow, parang American Idol. Sure, sir. I'll be Mrs. Chris Daughtry. =p Hotttt.

(2) Take the hard case.

No problem. I'm a self-confessed masochist. I like stress. I just lose hair over it. And complain a lot. But I like it. Diff is, OLA involves other people too. Now that's the clincher.

(3) Try the case you love.

Meron ba nun.

(4) Do not take the case home.

Literally or figuratively? Either way, is it possible not to? OLA hasn't even started but it's already giving me nightmares.

(5) Never lie or cheat.

Teddy Te: Come to think of it, that's an irony.

No comment. I invoke my right to remain silent.

(6) Beware of young lawyers. (They're excited and they "overprepare".)

Note that this refers to young LAWYERS. Therefore, not to me. I'm a mere pheasant. (Yes, with an H. As in feather creature.) Duh. I'm an incoming senior with absolutely ZERO knowledge of anything law-related. Sheeeyet!!! Pwede mamatay na ako ngayon pa lang?!!

(7) Do not drink before 5.

A.M. or P.M.? In any case, any time is arguably after 5 (pm or am) of the previous day. Bwahaha! I need a beer. Or five. Or "5 beers and half a bottle of wine". For those not in the know, that's from Teddy Te's exercise.

(8) Do not take yourself too seriously.

Oh, I really don't. I'm a complete and utter fool. Honest. I know I know nothing.

(9) Do not read advance sheets only.
(10) But read the advance sheets as well.

I'll worry about it when I have to.

(11) Keep fit.

I did 5k last night. Yipeedoo. At least I burned .000001% of my food intake. It was fun though. I was supposed to play basketball with Sands, but I was too sweaty and sticky to even consider any physical activity aside from walking home and taking a long shower.

(12) Enjoy other interests.

(Copied from Friendster) Hobbies and Interests:
Apparently, law. =p Hmmm... movies (just not local teeny bopper flicks), music (just not country music), food (Filipino, Thai, JAPANESE!!!), shopping, my friends' (and other people's) lives, sharks (I'm not kidding.), good books, the intricacies of the remote control, new stuff, new people, stuff, people =p, highlighters, power staplers and other gadgets, people-watching, talking, taking long walks (preferably in the rain), procrastinating

(13) Talk to civilians. (Get other friends.)

Almost all my friends went to law school... And when we meet up with those who didn't, they inevitably end up asking us for legal advice and the like. Which I despise to infinity and beyond.

(14) Take vacations.

But lethargy bores me to tears... Well, more than 2 weeks anyway.

(15) Do not worry about just winning.

More worried about how not to appear like the fool that I am.

(16) Laugh a lot.

I did a lot of that today. Cf. Direct examination of Mr. Tahong who was subsequently cited in contempt, or alternatively declared a hostile witness and imprisoned in a tub of water inside the court room, for refusing to respond to counsel's questions.

(17) Always prepare.

Well, I've started buying clothes... Does THAT count?

(18) Take time to look good, you'll feel good too.

What if that's the only thing one's got going...a good outfit. Can you move for postponement on the ground that your outfit's too good to be sweated into in a steaming courtroom?

(19) Pray!

Oh, I intend to do a lot of that.

Hay OLA OLA OLA... Now I understand my friends' misery... Kill me kill me kill me.

Officially on vacation

Yep, I am. I have so much to do though. Tomorrow, I'm off to get a CBC and a thyroid test. Suspected case of hypo (or is it hyper) thyroidism, my doctor tells me. And then I have to go drop by the tailor's for slacks. Gawd, OLA's looming over our heads. I wish I could just drop dead right now. Only good thing about it is that I get to shop. For clothes I can't really use everyday!!! Darn. I wanted to buy so many things in Eastwood earlier but I couldn't because I was saving my moolah for the "more important" stuff. I just got three blouses for my summer internship. I scoured through the Eastwood shops and found THREE that I liked.

Hay nako. That weird guy sent me another mushy email. Duh. Ano ba.

OLA OLA OLA... The new bane of my existence. We just spent 2 and a half days in loooooong lectures on what to do, what not to do, how exciting it is, how absolutely horrifying it is... It's mortifying having to handle cases for real people. It's their life and property dear. It's not like we can turn back time if we fuck it up. Good thing I didn't apply for summer OLA. If I had, I'd be dead by now. Charles has a direct examination set for Monday afternoon. Oggs has mediation on the 18th, direct examination on the 19th, and another hearing of some sort on the 27th. Holy crap. How am I going to survive senior year?!!!

=)

Somebody already broke my heart 5:01

you came along when i
needed a saviour
someone to pull me
through somehow
i've been torn apart so
many times
i've been hurt so many
times before
so i'm counting on you now

somebody already
broke my heart
somebody already
broke my heart

here i am
so don't leave me stranded
on the end of a line
hanging on the edge of a lie
i've been torn apart so
many times
i've been hurt so many
times before
so be careful and be kind

somebody already
broke my heart
if someone has to lose
i don't want to play
somebody already
broke my heart
no no i can't go there again

you came along when i
needed a saviour
someone to pull me
through somehow
i've been torn apart so
many times
i've been hurt so many
times before
so i'm counting on you now

somebody already
broke my heart
if someone has to lose
i don't want to play
somebody already
broke my heart
no no i can't go there again

(Adu/Denman/Matthewman)