On Fairness and Playgrounds

When I was in gradeschool, one of my classmates called me fat. Before I could respond (a.k.a. punch this kid in the face because I do not tolerate bullies), my bestfriend interrupted and said, "Yeah, but she's... good at Math!"

My bestfriend and I still laugh about it 'til now. I love her.

I went home that day pondering on what happened, and I realized that... I AM good at Math! I'm actually awesome at Math! But I'm also fat. Awesomely fat.

That was the moment when I decided that life is fair.

If you look at life in a linear way: fat - thin, good at Math - sucks at Math, rich - poor, etc., it will seem that life is unfair.

If you look at life in just a single spectrum of a certain quality and notice yourself to be close to one end of it, it will always seem that you lack or have too much of that particular quality. Think of it as a seesaw. You may want to be on top when you're at the bottom looking up and vice versa.

But life is composed of multiple combinations of those spectra. And somehow, if you sum up all these positive and negative qualities, you'll approach 0. Meaning life can pretty much be fair.

I stuck with this idealistic point of view until I found out what makes people's lives unfair.

Remember those spectra I was talking about? When someone is too good or bad at one of those, and he uses that quality to hurt someone else, that's when the seesaws get toppled. Just like how my classmate tried to do it to mine when he called me fat.

It was easy to handle that classmate since we were all kids and we were just in a classroom. I could easily punch him in the face* and life will be fair again. But what if you have no idea how to punch? What if you're one of those people who are good at Math, but sucks at punching? What if you're too nice and the bully is too mean? What if you are your own bully? How will you restore the seesaws then?

Life is fair. PEOPLE make it UNFAIR. The people who are too good at taking advantage are the ones messing up all our seesaws. And the only way to fight (besides punching them in the face) is to look for someone who can guard your playground and put the seesaws back to normal.

Sometimes, that someone can be your bestfriend (see first paragraph). Sometimes, it can be your parents or someone you hire to defend you. But most of the time, that someone is just you.

At the end of the day, those are your seesaws and you must learn to protect them. But until you can't, find comfort in the fact that those bullies have a very special place in the playground of hell.

*Kids, do not punch your classmates in the face.

-----

PS: I would like to send virtual hugs to those who are being bullied and have no idea how to protect their own playground as of the moment. *HUG*

Morning Rituals and Keeping Up with the Awesomeness

Alarm goes off at 4 in the morning. I hit snooze. I hit snooze 348756 times until it's 5:20am. I stand up. Finally.

I go to the bathroom. I bring my iPad and phone. I check my messages. I read. I think. I make most of my life's decisions in my bathroom. I finally take a bath. All this takes about 45 minutes to an hour.

I dress up. Oh, the dressing up. I seem to always love matching pink and green, green and brown, and blue and green. I either end up looking like a watermerlon or Mother Earth. I comb my hair and hastily grab all my stuff since I'm probably already running late because I couldn't decide which fruit I will dress up as that day. One quick glance around my room checking if I've forgotten anything, then I'm off.

I go to my parents' room to say goodbye. They're all still sleeping so I just sneak in to kiss my parents goodbye. My sister's stuck in the middle of my parents with her mouth wide open so I leave her alone.

I go down and eat breakfast. 10 minutes tops, then I'm off to my daily commute.

Tricycle. As the wind blows on my face, I put day cream on it. Sun block because... climate change.

Shuttle/FX. Oh the FX and its infinitely limited space. Once I reach the place where I take a jeep to the MRT, I check if my legs are still connected to my body. If they are, I continue.

Jeep. EMERTEE EMERTEE EMERTEE EMERTEE EMERTEE.

MRT. The stairs. The stairs are my morning enemy. Even if I DETEST how the MRT is being run by whoever, I actually love this part of my morning. Once I'm in the train, I put my earphones on, press Shuffle in my iPod, and finally I'm in a bubble for 30 minutes.

Bubble time. Oh, how I maximize those 30 minutes I have "all to myself." I put my earphones on and suddenly I'm bestfriends with Beyonce, Hayley Williams, Adele, Ingrid Michaelson, Armi Millare, Sara Bareilles and Regina Spektor. I suddenly have a concert and the #HumansofEDSA are my audience. Even The Script, Jason Mraz, Coldplay, The Smiths, Ed Sheeran, and Two Door Cinema Club attend my concert. It's AWESOME. Everyday, they attend. Everyday, IT'S AWESOME.

Today was different. Today, my earphones broke. My earphones broke and I didn't have my Bubble Time. My Bubble Time that I always look forward to every weekday morning. My 30 minutes "all to myself." No Beyonce...

Have you put Mentos in a newly opened Coca-Cola bottle? Have you watched an eruption of any volcano? Have you ever blacked out in a plane due to intense anxiety/anger because a baby is crying on top of his/her lungs? Or have you blacked out in general? All these happened to me at the same time in 3 seconds.

But after that, my perky/always positive thinking/taking control/won't-let-anything-ruin-my-day/I-can-always-turn-shit-around self kicked in. And I sang. Not out loud. Not out loud, but with conviction. I damn well sang my Beyonce and bobbed my head along with the bobbing of the train. I sang. I sang my frickin' heart out.

I sang my frickin' heart out because sometimes, when life breaks your earphones, you just gotta close your eyes, own the stage, and sing acapella to the #HumansofEDSA.

After all, they came all the way from wherever, sweating under the heat of the sun just to see you.

To-do list:
- Make life buy you new earphones!

GET MAD AND DO SOMETHING

"Lagi naman kaming binabaha. Sanay na kami."

"... sanay na kami." That is our enemy. Once we say that we're used to having the same problem over and over again, we distract ourselves from finding the right solution that'll stop all this. Once we get used to the same shit happening over and over again, we try to ignore the core of the problem completely making our resistance to the problem stronger heightening the problem even more and now we're in a vicious cycle blackhole that's growing bigger and bigger everytime calamities like this happen. WE HAVE TO STOP THIS SANAY-NA-KAMI MENTALITY and start attacking the heart of the problem. I say gather the people (which in this case wouldn't be that hard because everyone's already in all-ready evacuation centers) and aside from praying for everything to be better, EDUCATE the people why this is happening. Be mad! Because this CANNOT keep happening to us. WHERE IS GROWTH if our mentality is like this? EDUCATE. GET MAD AND EDUCATE. It's hard not to point fingers, but after doing that, DO SOMETHING. Don't stop at pointing your finger to others. Let it out then DO SOMETHING.

"Bumili na kami ng bangka. Ganito naman lagi 'pag malakas ang ulan."

SERIOUSLY? People actually think that buying boats and more life vests in times of calamities like this is the solution to the problem we've been having over and over again?? WE'RE SPENDING MONEY ON THE WRONG THINGS. This cannot keep happening. We cannot spend loads of our money on relief goods, rescue teams, BOATS (for crying out loud!), etc! I'm sure everyone's heard of "prevention is better than cure". Know the meaning, memorize, THEN APPLY.


I wanted to write about romanticizing the wrath of Mother Nature. Like how She is crying because we're doing such a shitty job taking care of Her. But no. What I think Mother Nature is doing is She's getting angry BECAUSE we're doing such a shitty job taking care of Her. Wherever did we get the idea that Mother Nature is a passive creature? That She would sulk because we're not doing our job. She's been trying to get our attention numerous times and now She's angry. She's showing us what She can do if we don't get our shit together. It's not even about how hard She lets the rain pour. She's testing how we can take what She can give us. She's testing if we'll actually do the right thing this time. She's testing if we have weapons for the battle. She's testing if we're ready. I say we fight. We fight for Her because to be honest, I wouldn't wanna piss Her off [again]. I wouldn't even try [again].

"Ganyan talaga ang mga Pinoy. Nakahahanap pa ng kasisiyahan sa gitna na kalamidad." - Filipino reporter

"It's so terrible. Why is the government like this in the Philippines?" - foreigner riding a pedicab on his way to the airport

"Kahit na binabaha, it's more fun in the Philippines!" (say that to the people who lost their loved ones due to Mother Nature's wrath)

Bipolarity, Randomness, Sleepiness

TAKE ONE:
[I used to think I had nothing to say. That I could handle everything on my own. But I actually wanna scream. I wanna burst out in tears. I actually wanna talk. And now that I have something to say, I find myself talking to a wall. I've been talking to a wall all this time.]

TAKE TWO:
[I've been on this Merry-Go-Round (which by the way is my favorite ride in amusement parks) for so long now. I'm already very dizzy. I wanna get off so bad, but I wanna get my money's worth. But is it really worth it when I already feel like vomiting?]

TAKE THREE:
[I'm not gonna fall for that bait you're dangling. I'm gonna keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Swimming, swimming.]

TAKE FOUR:
[It's funny when a dog chases its tail. It'll try to catch its tail around and around and around until it can't anymore. I like it when it stops and gives up. That implies that the dog learned it's impossible to chase your tail. I don't like it when it does the chasing over again.]

TAKE FIVE:
["CAN YOU HEAR ME?!" I hear a soft reply. Then I say even louder, "IS ANYBODY THERE?!" I can't quite make out the reply. I decide to listen very carefully as I screamed for the last time, "HELLO??!" I hear a faint, "Hello, Hello, Hello, Hello." Just an echo. No one's here.]

TAKE SIX:
[Jelly melly felly kelly celly nelly delly pelly. I wanna turn into jelly.]

PS: When I'm pissed off, just shut up 'cause I'm singing in my head.

When I woke up this morning, I felt the good vibes flowing in me. I slept for 12 hours [after a loooongg day of ushering students from grades 5 and 6 to attend an environmental lecture] and I felt like I was in heaven. I had no morning classes so that was a ginormous plus. I was so ready to have the most perfect day ever. I went to the library to meet up with my thesis partner and distribute tasks. After that, I had the most boring class EVER then I went to our organization's tambayan to meet up with friends and make my perfect day even more perfect.

The minute I opened the tambayan door, I saw an old friend. One scream did not do justice to how excited I was to see her. I hugged her real tight and immediately caught up with what was up with her life. We haven't seen each other for a little less than a year. We talked about law school, guys, gays, love lives, dead ends and grocery stores. Random things could not escape our conversation. It was real nice to see her. It was always a merry-go-round ride everytime I talk to her. It was always smooth and flowy and it feels like it will go on forever.

Eventually, she had to leave so it was just me and my other close friend in the tambayan. We talked about issues of people around us. She talked to me about one of my closest (best) friends in the organization and the shit that that person has been going through lately. I felt like such a bad "best" (the necessity for quotation marks will be explained later) friend because even if I knew all these things about him, I didn't have the push to bring it up whenever that person is around.

I don't know how to ask a person about his/her problems. I always feel awkward because I, myself, don't like being asked about my shit in life so I don't know how to handle these things. I don't like people asking me about my problems because I feel like they're gonna react the wrong way ("awww" or "it's ok") and I'm just gonna feel even shittier. I have massive trust issues so I'm worried that people might give me the wrong advice. I'm used to dealing with my problems on my own because I know who I am and I know how I do things my way. Some may call it "independence", but I call it "pride". My pride has become abnormally big (due to some circumstances) that it is close to impossible to swallow it. Some people may think it's easy to swallow their pride (maybe because they don't have any), but it is an ENORMOUS struggle for me (I think it's a disorder). I was raised to stand on my own two feet without needing any foot but my own, so bare with me.

I looked back and figured out how I dealt with my bestfriends since highschool. I realized that we lasted this long because they were the ones who would just tell me about their problems/worries. I needn't ask them. Starting a conversation with the goal to know what the problem of whoever I'm talking to is such a struggle to me so I feel like I could never be a good bestfriend. (It's not an emo statement. I'm just purely stating what I think.) I don't like meddling with other people's shit because I don't like being meddled with (how many times must I emphasize this in this entry?). When I'm already in the conversation, that's when I can work my magic. I feel like something or someone must set the mood first before I talk to the person about his/her shit. I'm a pretty good listener and I give real good advice (no humility here, I'm really good... you just have to give me time to think). I guess that's what made my bestfriends since highschool stay with me. I can be real funny most of the time, but I can also be intensely emotional. I just feel bad because even if I know that one of my bestfriends is dealing with his shit, I'm just here, helplessly struggling how to approach him, and watching him deal with the shit on his own when I'm willing to clean up all the shit with him.

[There's still one more thing that I realized about myself today, but I think it'd be better to have a separate entry for that. It's quite heavy.]

So the "perfect day" ended with a dinner (plus tea) with my close friends, lots and lots of trivia from a friend who could shorten them once in a while, finally having a one-on-one session with THAT bestfriend, and me abruptly stopping on my way to our boarding house while screaming in my head because of the staring contest I had with a frog who thinks he's boss.

Destinies, Expectations, Hopes, Mathematics, and Physics

Destiny, what the hell did I ever do to you? Why are you fucking with me? You know that feeling when you're looking forward to something real bad and then it doesn't happen? It's like committing suicide and ending up alive in a hospital. It's like drinking from a glass of what you thought was milk, but is actually water. It's like speeding up on a street expecting lots of speed bumps, but it turns out there are none. Doesn't it feel like crap? To avoid these shit, people came up with "Expect the unexpected." But those people don't know that every human being still expect the expected. We cannot avoid it. We can only modify it. And this is why smart people came up with "Expect the worst, and hope for the best." Yes, these people are smart, but they are not compassionate. They don't know how hard it is to expect the worst out of something. They don't know how easy it is to lose hope and still expect the worst.

Yes, expecting the worst and hoping for the best work. But it's hard to apply in real life. Just like Mathematics and Physics.

PS: Sorry, Destiny, for trying to question your plans. But please make me happy just this once. Please...

Day 17: Least Favorite Book Adaptation

Day 17: Least Favorite Book Adaptation
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Ugh. The movie didn't even explain what the hell Padfoot, Moony, Wormtail, and Prongs mean. Rarr. Mess with any book you want, but NOT Harry Potter!

Just Five More Months... Only Five Months...

My roommate told me that our landlady is bitching about my going home late all the time. She claims that I wake her up from her deep slumber because, (1) the gate squeaks like nails on blackboard (the gate that she refuses to put oil on so it wouldn't make such a shrieking noise) and (2) the stupid dog keeps barking whenever it sees something move (if they would only walk the damn dog and play with it more it wouldn't be that agitated). The only thing that irritated me so bad is when she said to my roommate, "She always comes home late. Is she even studying?" ARE YOU SHITTING ME?! You have no idea what I do when I'm outside (or even inside!) the fucking boarding house! Yes, I go out with my friends all the time (and I always tell you that I'm with them whenever I truly am), but I also spend sleepless nights in coffee shops and the frickin' library STUDYING and biting off the heads of people who would dare to distract me from it (which I also tell you)! I need an enormous table (because I like spreading my things so I can immediately grab anything) or a place not conducive to sleeping to be able to study effectively and efficiently. The/your boarding house does not/cannot offer me those things so I have to do something. It pisses me off when people (even my parents) ask me that stupid question (yes, stupid questions DO exist). It's very offensive to me because I have never worked my ass off like this before and I don't need people lurking behind me saying that I'm not doing anything or that I'm not doing enough. I mean, I'm no laude standing or whatsoever, but I HAVE BEEN A CONSISTENT DEAN'S LISTER SINCE FRESHMEN YEAR so shut the hell up and mind your own shit.

I don't need to prove anything to you. Your a powerful person in UP, why don't you log in to my CRS account and see for yourself the grades of a student who has friends (which you did not have I suppose... otherwise you'd get what I'm so pissed off about) and still manages to keep her grades up. It's not my problem that you don't get it because you're senile so just bug off. If you don't want any sound coming from your boarding house, rent it out to turtles or lizards not human beings.

Day 2: Least Favorite Film

Day 2: Least Favorite Film
The Devil

Ugh. This is by far the stupidest film I have ever watched. And I've heard the director's no good. Watch so you can judge.

PS: Actually, my least favorite film is a battle between this one and The Village. But since I already answered The Village to the other 30 day challenge................

Last Straw: You Just Sat on the Camel

I received a text message from a friend this morning. The message didn't quite sink in to me because I just woke up and my head was still a bit woozy (I slept at 4am in the morning. Bum life rocks!). It sunk in to me when I was in the bathroom. All my blood immediately went to my head and it felt like it was going to explode. I needed to stay in the shower a bit longer.

Saying that you don't care about someone's opinion of you is EXACTLY the same as saying you don't care about the person. The person and his/her opinion ARE NOT mutually exclusive so you can NEVER separate them from one another. This implies then that all those times that we spent with each other were just pretend. Plastic-an lang pala ang lahat.

I had this close friend before. We had an enormous misunderstanding on something that was very petty (from my point of view, anyway). That petty thing caused us our friendship. At first, I was annoyed because it seemed easy for him not to be friends with me anymore. I tried reaching out to him, but it felt like I just kept banging my head on the wall over and over again. I felt bad that I gave up. Eventually, I felt bad that I didn't care about him anymore. My head was hurting already so I had to stop the banging. I have missed this friend since then. I miss him hanging out in my house. I miss all the drama he piled up on me. I miss his company. I miss his advices. I miss his concern. I miss his presence. Recently, I have been having the same feelings with this [ex-] friend who apparently didn't care about us all along.

[Hindi ko alam kung masasaktan ako o magagalit sa sinabi mo. Masakit na sinabi mong wala kang pakialam sa tingin namin sa 'yo. Ibig  sabihin no'n wala kang pake sa 'min. So ano pala ung mga pinaggagagawa natin dati? Plastikan lang pala un? And parang hindi mo pa rin gets ung mga ginawa mong mali. Sige, bulag-bulagan (tanga-tangahan) nalang. Sinabi ko sa bestfriend ko (na friend mo pa rin hanggang ngayon) nung isang araw na namimiss kita. Sinabi ko na kahit na ganun ung pinaggagagawa mo, namimiss ko pa rin ung dati. Ngayong summer, nagbasa ako ng old messages sa phone. Nakita ko ung mga text mo. Mas lalo pa kitang na-miss. Tapos biglang narinig ko 'to. This was the last straw. Ayoko nang bigyan ka ng importansya. Nagalit ako at nasaktan ako. Alam mo naman kung paano ko tintreasure ang mga kaibigan ko tapos biglang ganito. Alam mo naman ung mga nangyaring paga-unfriend dati diba? Hindi ko pa close un ah at nasaktan na 'kong malupet. Sa 'yo pa kaya. Pero ngayon, masyado mo na kaming tinutulak palayo kaya wala na 'kong mapaglalaanang importansya pa para sa 'yo. Hindi ko maiiwasan ang pag-miss sa mga pilit kong kinakalimutang mga kaibigan. Pero sa sinabi mong 'to mukhang magiging posible atang magawa ko 'yon.]