.Move it.

I just had a chaotic converstaion with my mom. Well, it’s about something personal and we can’t meet halfway. It is just so depressing that, though I’ve known it all along, I’m already pissed off when I realized that no matter what the deal is, I will always end up loosing against her. And she also got pissed of, so to get even, she grounded me from using the internet, she even crashed the poor USB modem so it wouldn’t be useful again. I can’t describe how disappointed and depressed I am. Not because the internet modem was broken but because I was stopped to do something I wanted to do when I only have few opportunities of doing them. I am going back to the academy on sunday and the thought keeps me uncomfortable and weary. I really don’t want to go back to that place. Why would I want to go to a place where my guards are always up to prevent other people from taking advantage of me? I wouldn’t want to go back to an isolated place where everything that I do is limited to what I should do, where freedom is limited and I will have to wait for a long period of time to see my family and friends again. But I have to go back. And I will. Though the idea itself is suffocating.This sacrifice that I have to make to achieve what I need to do not what I want to do. Everything is really difficult.

I didn’t know what to do to get rid of the frustration. I thought of having a walk but I have nowhere to go, I have no friend who live nearby. So I dug may old stuff. The first interesting thing that I saw was the movie of one of my favorite books–The Secret. I decided to watch it again sometime later hoping that it will make me feel good the same way it made me feel when I first saw the movie. Then I saw my pictures when I was a kid. Particularly a picture when I was about 10, I was carrying a drum and holding drumsticks. I was a drummer back then. A part of me wished to go back in time, not to change anything I did that I wasn’t thankful for but to relive the moments when life seems so simple. Life when I was too young to know what I was doing and problems were so simple, life was never complicated. Yeah, when life seems easy.

But reality bites.

No matter how it annoyingly stings, it will just be more painful it I won’t accept it as it is and live the moment I am in. Life is more complicated now. I should expect rough roads and I should be tough enough to forward through them, because that’s the only way through. Which reminds me, I won’t accomplish anything if I just sit and write here. Well, I have to find some way to enjoy my stay.

hmm… maybe writing is not bad at all.

.show some respect.

Respect. This is an attitude that we all know and claim that we have
but in reality, we often do a lot of things that show its opposite
(most of the time, without realizing it). We have more than plenty of
situations where we take respect for granted—during formation (talking and
not listening while someone is giving an instruction or pep talk,
laughing at grammar errs and letting others notice it), in the
classroom (not listening to the instructor while having a lecture,
intentionally sleeping in class, making funny remarks when it’s not
needed, interrupting a talking instructor just because we can’t wait
to make our point), and even in the school properties (clogging the
drainage in head with some unmentionables, breaking things
intentionally or unintentionally thinking that they are consumables or
thinking that nobody will see or report anyway), it is so
disappointing that there are too many to mention. Maybe it happens
because we are too focused on self gratification and we don’t realize
the consequences of everything we say and do, or we can blame it to
“old habits die hard” because we are so used to disrespecting people
and places that we become unconscious that we are doing it, or it can
also root from the tradition started by others that influenced us, we
can mention more reasons but it will all boil down to one
thing—we don’t know what respect really is.
Let’s face it. There are many individuals out there who believe that
they gain respect, or they deserve respect just because they are
superior to others – when it comes to status or position and that gives
them the right to abuse or mock others. There are those who take
mistakes against those who made it because they think they are far
better. No. It doesn’t work that way. As the ethic of reciprocity
implies, do not do unto others what you do not want done unto you.
Before we do or say something (especially if it’s not good), we must
put ourselves in somebody else’s shoes first. The person that we are
laughing at when making grammar lapses or anything that shows the
level of his education, did we consider ourselves in his position?
Haven’t we realized that we are lucky enough to be given better
education opportunities than him and that if he was given the same
opportunity, he could’ve done better than us because he makes
admirable efforts in speaking English despite of difficulties and
mockery? When we interrupt someone in the middle of his statement to
make his point, did we consider that like us, he is also talking to be
heard? And we wonder why he was so eager to make his point—and pissed
off. When we buy something to be utilized by others and afterwards
we’ll find out that it was irresponsibly used, did we consider that
when we break things provided by our institution? When we are boasting
that we are proud member of an institution, did we consider that when we break its
rules and get away with it? When we require respect from
our subordinates, do we show them that we deserve it? Do we even
respect our subordinates to begin with? Or do we show them how to do
it, the way we mean it and the way it should be?
Respect is a complex idea and it can get even more complicated
especially when we have a wrong notion about it. Let’s put it in a
simpler way, they say that in order for us to show respect to others,
we begin respecting ourselves and by that we would know the limits of
what we can take from other people, things that we don’t want to be
done to us personally [we have to consider even the simplest offense
as we all have diverse reaction to everything, there are those who
over react and there are those who just ignore. The bottomline is,
let’s just be sensitive to the feelings of others] and once we know
our boundaries and considered other’s, we now practice putting
ourselves in others shoes before we say or do something so that we
would somehow understand their reaction.  Let’s accept that everyone
has diverse culture, character and individuality—and respect them.

My Sister’s Got a Boyfriend!

I’m happy seeing her finally having a boyfriend, after 20 years; I realize that (despite her height and boisterous laughter) my sister is not an alien!—She’s normal!

I just had a very rough day. The kind of day when I was so excited to go home from the moment I woke up at the IMMAJ barracks (around 0300 Hour) until I literally stepped on our apartment’s doorstep in Manila. Rough because there were not only few but many circumstances– and people, delayed my departure from that not-so-wonderful place and I ended up extremely exhausted. But that wasn’t the only issue because I was going home to a place that I literally don’t know where. My family changed our address when I was still isolated in that awful place in Bataan (together with other castaways) and for some reason I was not able to get the address (and even if I did, it wouldn’t be easy to find it—you know how houses are well arranged in Sampaloc). I went directly to my aunt’s house and thank God my mom was there ready to pick me up. Our apartment was a few-minute ride from my aunt’s. I thought the day was already over; I was smiling, thinking that I will be able to update my Facebook account once I got home and even more excited with the thought that I will be killing a lot of MMORPG characters with the game I am addicted to. But the day was full of something, seeing a visitor in our apartment isn’t a surprise for me (we occasionally have our relatives come in), but seeing a not blood related guy, who was suspended in school for a year because of me, sitting comfortably on our sofa is a very big surprise… and learning that HE IS MY SISTER’S BOYFRIEND, is a bomb! Not just your ordinary bomb—a nuclear bomb that blew my world out of proportions!—that, for a fraction of seconds.

You can imagine how awkward the situation was. We did not part ways in good terms, because though it’s not entirely my fault, I still pulled the trigger of his suspension and he lost a year. Oh! That story is complicated and that’s not the issue here.  The who doesn’t matter for I trust my sister’s meticulous judgment, it’s the what—my sister’s got a boyfriend!  Her big brother (I’m too thin to be called “big”, I know, but I’m still her big brother!) is getting sentimental. I have realized so many things because of the situation. I miss my sister.  Before I entered the academy, she never had a boyfriend. It’s not that I was an over protective brother back then (I was even excited reading the love letters sent to her especially when we were in high school), it’s just that she knows she was too young for that sort of thing that time. Before, I was the only guy she clings to. Wherever I go, my little sister was there. Almost all the time I got punished by my mom because of my failures she was also there with me, consoling me. We had countless misunderstandings, I have hurt her (I still regret that!) and she’s done the same, but every after, we say sorry to each other. She does things for me—wash my clothes, cook and serve me food and even serve me coffee. I brought her to school whenever I had a chance (that was, when I was still working, she’s already college that time), and I kissed her on her cheeks or forehead (or head) whenever we parted ways (I still do, even in public). Whenever she asks me money I give her more than what she asks for (especially when she have projects or she wants to hang out with her cute girlfriends) and when I was short, she gave me her spare money from her allowance. We were so sweet that those who don’t know us personally mistook us for a couple whenever we were together (especially in high school, we were on the same school).  Now that she has a boyfriend, everything will not be the same. I’m not jealous of her boyfriend or anything, I know that the situation is far different from what I am afraid of but it feels like she’s going away, other than me and our father, there’s another guy in her life. Time works so swiftly. I know that this would happen, that she would have a boyfriend someday, and eventually marry and have a family of her own; I just didn’t realize it would happen this soon.

Oh well, this is inevitable. It means that my sister is not getting any younger (so am I. haha). This gives me the realization that I should maximize my time with my two sisters. Later, my youngest sister will be in the same situation (but I pray this not to be soon)