Out-house review - again

As you might as well know, I was notorious when it came to attendance in the in-house review my university gave last academic year. The one and a half day I attended felt like a ruptured cerebral aneurysm on my head. But that’s that. However, since my two best friends were also at the college of nursing with me, it has been my habit to annoy them when it comes to their obsessive attendance with the then in-house.

One time, I had them both in my house and I was answering a test book when they arrived, and as natural as it was, I started to quiz them and it turned out that they didn’t know much about the questions in the book, which I accidentally happen to know so I would tease them and say out loud, to the danger of a tonsil laceration, “Ano ha, yan ba ang napapala nyo sa kakain-house nyo?” and I would laugh the most evil laugh in the world and, and choke.

Now a week after graduation, we are now attending review centers, and yes, I have not skipped class, yet. The fun part was, on the first day of the review class, they gave us a diagnostic exam, a pretest. It was 250 items and I expected that my neck would very well be broken as I go in one gallant attempt to hurdle each question with all the intellectual capacity of my peanut-sized brain, or, guess the answer, which was most likely what is to happen, and I know so because I know I was a slacker. But something happened that changed my mind from playing to a semi-serious state. They said whoever tops the exam gets a prize. Wow. I like prizes.

So I had a goal: to nab a seat, first five in a class of almost 200, I think.

They handed the exam good for two hours. I finished with an hour to spare. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign though. All the cum laudes are still answering and pondering heavily. Oh well, what the hell, who cares anyway.

It was seven PM and the moment of truth. I was nervous, because I was dying to go home. I hated all the blah-blah and frankly, at the end of the day I found myself not caring anymore about the prize because I was too tired, I just wanted to leave and fucking rest and I was disgusted by all the unnecessary talk still happening, it pissed me really.

But I liked it when they said I was fifth place.

Subtitles make the world a better place!

Every beginning comes from some other beginnings end.

I just graduated from college last Wednesday. I can’t say that the pain is over though, because really, I like the ten percent discount on student fare, and now that I am done with school, I’m thinking, “hey, what am I supposed to do now?” because really, things where way simpler when I was still at the university. I wake up each morning, shower, skip breakfast because I’m late, then go to school to meet my same old rusty, disgusting chair, attend my first class and skip the next two and I’m done.

However, it was the graduation exercises that proved to be interesting, make that very interesting!

First, we didn’t have it on some fancy hotel or restaurant but on a basketball arena more like it. But I found that it was understandable because we were so many we couldn’t fit in any local hotel or restaurant! The only thing I hated about it was the heat! It was fucking dehydrating! If I had known it would be that uncomfortable I would’ve passed on attending. Oh, wait, parents might kill me, so I guess, if I had known it would be that hot I would’ve brought a huge blower and have it all to myself, huh!

The second and most interesting part was the guest speaker. I could think of three reasons why he was most fascinating: one, he was a foreigner, a philanthropist who sends students to our school on his scholarship program; two, he was a most successful man - blind man; and three, when he started to speak, at first I thought, the sound system sucked because I couldn’t make a word out of what he was speaking, but later I realized that he was delivering his speech on another language! OMG! But there was a man beside him who proved to be the interpreter, but the sad part was, he wasn’t very good at English too so you could imagine how painful it was.

Wow. I was just amazed at what I was seeing then, a bit disappointed because I wanted to care about what the guest speaker would be saying to us, but as it turned out, it was something like that of Coffee Prince on DVD, only without the subtitles. God, I wish there was a subtitle; it was there I realized how I loved subtitles. They make the world a better place.

Oh and the third reason why the graduation rocked? All the people I love where there and they were over the top happy and proud of me, especially when I got up that stage and took my medal and certificate of appreciation, but I don’t want to elaborate on that anymore, do I?

So it’s all over. It’s so over. What’s that thing again they say after graduation? Ah, I remember.

I guess it’s welcome to the real world.

Lead us not into temptation

My stomach hates me. And it’s not because I’m down with diarrhea at present.

I’m a bad ass when it comes to dietary habits. Long ago, I’ve come at peace with the fact that there is a great, humongous chance that I might as well die of colon cancer.

One, I’m a meat eater and frankly, I’ll never be friends veggies because really, having leaves on my mouth gives me an awful feeling of being transformed into a rabbit; and two, my eating pattern is next to horrendous because as frequent as it could get, I usually eat on the wrong time, like when my stomach lining had already been burned by stomach acid and my tummy is already screaming curse words at me.

The story here was last lent. Apart from not touching the computer and raping the internet yet again, I decided I wanted to fast. My first attempt was on Maundy Thursday, but I only lasted until lunch because I forgot I didn’t eat anything the night before so around 1:00 PM my head was swirling and I swore I was seeing things. The next go I had with fasting was on Good Friday and I was doing pretty good skipping breakfast and morning snack but the devil paid me a visit at lunch time. We had steamed shrimp at the table and when my sister told me about it my mouth watered my shirt was almost drenched! It was a tough temptation and I figured, really not only does temptation take the face of beautiful things, it also come with the delicious, damn it!

But I had to stay strong!

On the table, when my sister saw me missing, she came to me at the room, then finding me trying my fucking best to divert my attention in watching Coffee Prince on DVD and not on steamed shrimp. She told me it was shrimp (Oh the temptation! It’s killing me!), and I firmly said I’m not eating because I am fasting. My sister told me suspiciously, “Be sure it’s because of lent and not an attempt to kill yourself.” Oh man.

Needless to say, I made it. I was still alive though I haven’t eaten anything. And seriously, next time lent comes, I think I’ll find some other medium of fasting, I’ve had enough with abstaining from food, I found that it sucks so much until now I’m having stomachaches and it’s already been two weeks!

Really, fasting. Dead. I’m dead.

Pagbilan nga po ng kending hubad!

I couldn’t remember much when I was little, so when my best friends and I had the chance to talk about our childhood, I had so much fun, since the conversation revolved on candy and its quite outrageous forms.

I found the stories and trivia my friends shared as very interesting, I feel I’m being selfish if I don’t share it with you.

Asase: Alam mo wala na akong makitang Chocobot ngayon eh, namimiss ko talaga yun, gusto ko pa naman yung mga nababasa sa loob nun, yung may smiley, parang horoscope yun eh.

Rem: Ako din paborito ko yun dati, pero ngayon Hani na lang ang binibili ko, magkalasa din naman kasi eh… Pero dati yung magaling yung tsitsirya na may pera sa loob, yung Araw-araw!

Asase: Ah oo, diba pinapabunot yun, bago nga ako bumunot inaalog ko muna lahat.

Me: Yuck, you actually eat that, may money sa loob, dirty kaya yun!

Rem: Hindi, hindi namen kinakaen yun, masama ang lasa, panget, basta kinukuha ko lang yung pera sa loob! Alam mo yun andun pa nga yung 50 cents na malaki pa yung size.

Arn: Basta ko paborito ko yung kending hubad.

Me: Ano? Bakit may kendi bang may damet?

Arn: Hindi, basta yung kending hubad, nakalagay sa bote tsaka maraming asukal.

Me: Ah, parang Filipino version ng jelly beans.

Pia: Oo ganun, pero ako ang gusto ko yung Rabbit, yung may papel na nakadikit sa candy.

Me: Yeah, mahirap alisin yung nakadikit na papel dun eh!

Pia: Hindi yung iba nakakain talaga, tapos yung pirated papel talaga yung nakabalot, hindi kinakaen.

Asase: Nabiktima na nga din ako ng mga ganiyan, sa pulvoron naman. Yung ibang balot kasi nakakain yung kulay puti, kaya akala ko lahat pwedeng kainin, nung nakakita ko kinaen ko na lang, kaso hindi natutunaw yung papel eh, nagtaka nga ako.

Me: Wow, talino mo talaga sis, talagang nagtaka ka pa!

Arn: Teka… meron pa eh, yung kending bilog, yung parang sa kinakaen ng matatanda.

Me: Ngek, may ganun ba candy na para lang sa matanda?

Rem: Ah alam ko yan! Yung parang panutsa!

Arn: Oo, ano nga ba ang tawag dun…

Rem: Kariba! Kariba nga, yung pag kinaen mo magkakadiabetes ka!

At this point, it was sad that the conversation ended because… because I… I was rolling on the floor in laughter, then seconds more I needed to go to the clinic badly because of a terrible stomchache!

Today we committed murder

While everybody in the world were probably glued to their televisions in wild anticipation of the Pacquiao-Marquez II, I must admit that before the actual fight,  my sister, my father, and I were busy doing something else - murder.

It began when my youngest sister noticed something wrong with Happy, our dog, blind dog.

“Yuck Happy, kadiri ka!”my sister exclaimed with utmost disgust in her face, then she called on my father to fix Happy. I, on the other hand, just remained seated on the same living room, laughing my heart out due to the horrible expression that painted my sister’s face.

“Ikaw na ang mag-alis,” my father told her, him not wanting to get up from his comfy divan and trusting that my sister’s able enough to fix the matter with Happy.
My sister made a horrendous face again, but seeming that she was too bothered by Happy’s situation, she thought about a solution in order for her to be able to help the blind dog. She went up the stairs and when she came down, she was wearing disposable gloves, and I was probably on the ground now, hitting the floor because I couldn’t contain my laughter any longer!

See the problem with Happy was, my sister found out, was fleas. The dog had quite a number of plump raisin-sized fleas tucked disgustingly on her feet, and my sister was just so grossed out about it, she couldn’t bear not removing them but at the same time was so nauseous about the idea that she has to touch the over-fed fleas, so the solution, gloves!

When my father saw how desperate she was, he volunteered to help and pluck the yucky fleas off Happy. He and my sister started their efforts to unplagued Happy, and I… I continued to laugh till I had a stomachache.

Then my sister had another problem! “Saan ko ilalagay ang mga ‘to?!” she complained referring to the obese fleas they caught already, since she couldn’t murder them on the living room floor but she couldn’t leave Happy yet because the ‘harvesting’ is still on going.

My father instructed her to just place them on the floor but she panicked! “Eh baka tumakbo yung mga ‘to!” so she decided it was about time she went out in the garden to finally kill the giant fleas.

I was having such a nice laugh, and I was curious as to how she’d execute the pests that I followed her outside. I found her kneeling on the ground, with the fleas probably screaming and begging for her to spare their lives on flea language that we can’t understand. My sister was holding a small rock and pounding on a fat flea that was first on death row. When she saw me, she was annoyed. “Ayaw mamatay, ang kunat!” OMG. if so much laughter could kill I’m sure I’m cold now. Then she added, “Wala na bang mas malaking bato dito?!” then she stood up and looked for another instrument of terror, after instructing me to pay close watch on the fleas on the ground so that no one escapes.

It was then that my father also went out to see us, apparently with more relatives of the fleas. “Pa, ayaw mamatay eh!” my sister complained. So my father threw the cousins and Uncles of the first flea captives on the ground then on a split second merrily smudged them with his foot, leaving a disgusting taint of blood on the ground, which I think my mother won’t be so jolly about. And that was the end of the fleas.

“Eeeewwwww!” my sister and I screamed, completely grossed out. But you know what? When we looked at the fleas, amazingly, death or alive, they still look like raisins! Just more disgusting.

Why ‘let it be’ when there’s ‘letter E’!

It was disturbingly hilarious.

The last episode of American Idol cued this piece of memory in me. On the first week of the Final 12, Brooke White sang the Lennon-McCartney song, Let it be. I found her performance very heartfelt and moving, but I must say it was not my most favorite version of the song, not the most that affected my breathing space.

The best time I heard Let it be sung was when I was in Zambales, yes, during the CIRPS essay writing contest, and yes again, where I almost died. It was lunch time, awfully hot and terribly dusty, my mentor and I walking pass a construction in the Ramon Magsaysay Technological University, where we saw a guy taking his rest under the shades. He was singing a song, out loud, with all his heart, and tonsils.

“Let it be, let it be… Let it be, oh, let it be…” this was what we heard, being sung by the guy - or so we thought.

Once we got pass a bit off the construction, we could still hear the guy carrying his tune, and you know what? All along the man was singing, “Letter E, letter E… Letter E, oh, letter E…”

OMG!

When my mentor and I finally absorbed the guy’s version of the song, I tried to ignore it because it was just too much, I thought it was so out of it, but when my mentor started laughing, oh boy, we surely had a good release of our stress!

If there’s any learning, I realized that really, this life is a matter of perspective - some people ‘let it be’, while others try to make it their own way and just letter E!

If love makes the world go round, then I’m awfully dizzy

Passion can hurt you, badly. And mince you to pieces till your practically microscopic, with the most nasty smile painted on its lips while doing the messy process.

It’s quite hard to figure really, because it’s too inconstant, and because of that, never bankable.

Everybody has been hurt, and nobody has ever escaped its ugly face - ever, and the bad news is, it never happens to you only once, sometimes as luck would have it, it hits you every damn second of every waking day of your life! Sometimes, the pain so severe tears no longer come out your eyes and the headache that has replaced the madness in your chest suggests that you’re now suffering from a bad case of dehydration.

Then it all gets crazy as your weak frame starts to drown in a suffocating array of emotions that proves to be just too much you’d have this vague sense of feeling that you’re about to explode to a gazillion pieces!

And you wonder why love isn’t making you happy.

And the longer you stay in your rot, the longer your insides get eaten by ill-feelings, by resentment, by tormenting agony - then you start to hate.

When you’re lucky you just end up hating the specific cause of the decease of your cardiac muscle, but when it all gets too ugly, you end up detesting love itself, and just decide once and for all that the only reason to cure your agony is to forget about your passion, what you desire. Be stoic: Suffering is caused by passion and human desire, so just get rid of it!

It’s not really so hard, giving up. In fact, it’s the easiest thing to do in the world.

But after awhile, after spending some time in that wall you created for yourself away from everybody, that strange feeling of emptiness will eventually sink in and you’ll realize that without pain, you cannot really experience the joy, hope, majesty and healing power of love.

At the end of the day, you cannot just rip your heart out from your chest and throw it in a Ziploc where it would be safe. That’s just disgusting.

Out-house review

I must admit I’m a bad ass student. As a matter of fact, this semester I only attended my minor subject four times. I’m not sure my instructor noticed though. I know, I know, my instructor very well deserves to hand me a 3.0 but I seriously doubt that though. If I’m Sibyl Trelawney here, I guess I could well manage to pull somewhere between 2.0 and 2.5, a 1.75 if my instructor’s damn generous even!

Heck, one more manifestation of my awful study habit is the fact that, for this academic year where our college implemented a year-round in-house review, I only attended my review sessions for one and a half days - take note of the ‘and a half part’ as it is very important, which reminds me of one funny incident where I heard the mother of my best friend complaining that for two consecutive days, my friend had not been attending her reviews, and I was totally swallowing my humongous guffaws! I was like, what the heck, her absences are even more than the days I attended mine, how could her mother nag at her for that, Jesus Christ.

But hey, before you pray for my ultimate downfall in the local nursing licensure boards, let me say that I haven’t slept all this time whereas all my batchmates have been burning their books. I  do my own review session right at home, while lying on my bed and fighting hard not to fall asleep. See I bought this test book and I doodle on it, I mean, I answer it and read the rationales there. And I like it that way because it’s simpler plus there’s no need for me to sit for eight hours forcing myself to listen through boring lectures which I hardly get at all because all I could think of is the door out of the classroom.

But designing your own in-house review is still pretty tough. The discipline you have to enforce on nobody else but yourself is awful and the heart to fight the call of TV where you still have 100 remaining questions to answer is just unbelievable. But I’m sticking with this because somehow I kind of feel this is working for me.

But come to think about it, I’ll still have my structured reviews come summer starts since my mother had been so eager to enroll me on a local review center. Oh, I don’t know how I’ll fair there, but I’m seriously considering attending if they promise to hand out leakages a week before the actual exams, that would be great!

Oxygen! Oxygen!

This is what I am trying to do now: I am attempting to control myself to not be controlling anymore. Get it?

Just recently, I finally had the chance to read the philosophy book my sister had recommended for the longest time. It was titled the Art of Living, the stoic philosophy of Epictetus. I’m not quite sure if those wiggly cabbages atop your heads could still recall your Philosophy of Man days, but stoics are those people who rid themselves out of human desire and passion, since as they say, these only contribute as hindrances towards man’s ultimate goal of spiritual fulfillment. I think stoicism is an extreme form of defense mechanism, or a simple recipe for a blah life, but you know what, I kind of feel that if one is able to apply the philosophies on a balanced scale, the ideas could well work for a happy existence and a life built on open-mindedness.

From the book on my hand, the first discussion on The Manual really caught my eye. It talked about control. And FYI, for as long as I’ve known myself, which roughly translates to forever, I had been a control freak - a fucking control freak. I hated it when things just seem to be too slow or too far out on my grasps, when what’s happening wouldn’t go along to what I planned or what I hoped for, I get totally paranoid, my mad and ever-helpful brain totally filling my head with all the worst things that could add to everything that’s already gone completely, infuriatingly wrong.

But it was helpful, to some extent really, the discussions on the book. The words so powerful it felt like a blinding light in front of me: trying to control or to change what we can’t only results in torment. I’ve proven it true over and over but hey, thank my system for I practically am one of the most hard-headed people you’ll ever meet, I actually almost go against everything.

And it’s been tough. I mean, it gets to a point where everything is just so fucking tiring, always trying to strike control with everything - and everyone - that whenever things go wrong I get a good run down and my cardiac muscle is just fucking flat out, or pricked, or slashed, or shredded, or minced and pummeled, depending on the amount of obsession I had with the matter, sometimes the pain on my chest so severe, i think it’s fucking driving me to the tips of my sanity!

So I resulted to following what the book says, you know, trying to breathe in and out and exercise some logic before stressing against something, but I must admit it’s awfully hard to train oneself not to worry about matters that’s supposed to be outside your control, because really, that’s what I want, to be in control, how hard is that to understand! But since, it doesn’t seem to do me a lot of good, I am experiencing ambivalence, me against my system. Sigh.

But as I have learned, desire of all sorts are but habits - that could be changed, therefore, it is a must that we learn to master our desires - both a necessity and an obligation, if we are to find peace from within. I must admit, it is a fact, when we desire something that reins out of our control, something that won’t follow our whims no matter how much effort we put in, it is fucking as sure as sunshine in the morning that we’ll be getting hurt.And really, how many things can we really control? I guess pretty much nothing besides our own will and attitude and nothing more with what’s outside our system.

So maybe I’m a control freak on a scale of 147 out of 100. But I’m telling you, it’s more maddeningly insane to try to control yourself to stop being fucking controlling! It’s killing me in suffocation!

Argh!

Oxygen! I can’t breathe! Somebody hand me a fucking O2 mask!

Mouth temporarily closed for renovation

It was mid-morning, I was lying on my back with my head awkwardly elevated and my eyes closed. I heard an irritating sound and it was then I decided to open my eyes. I couldn’t make out what I was seeing because I’m totally blinded by this intense white light, the fight that my eyes waged getting weaker and weaker by the minute.

But…

Nah, I’m not dead. I was just on a dentist chair getting my teeth quarried, the holes so big I think whole peanuts could well fit them - and how I wish I’m exaggerating but I’m actually not.

God! You know what, I’m the type of girl who could well manage to bungee jump but is just petrified big time by a trip to the dentist. I hate it!

But if there’s any realization, I realized the glory keeping your mouth shut could bring. I mean, my cute ass was practically sewn unto that dentist chair for approximately two hours and the time I spent with my mouth kept open like it was some new found cave up for exploration was also approximately two hours. Wow. I think I’d like to keep my mouth shut for the rest of today.

I also thought giving blabbermouths and gossip-mongers free dentist trips is a good idea. I think they’d like that, and because they can’t keep their mouth shut, might as well put it to good use and give their toothies a good run down. All is happy in the end.

As for me, well, though I think the dentist chair is really a torture chamber in disguise, it can’t really stop me from having that next Hershey bar on the fridge, can it?