where to, miss?

truth is a bus ticket.

have a nice trip. =)

random thoughts

i used to be scared of getting my own blog because i felt that it would confirm the fact that i had nothing to write about. the spontaneity and the candidness of the entries of the people whose blogs i read always amaze me! i mean, how can people go through so much in a day? how can they have profound thoughts in the mundane rut that we all go through? how can breakthroughs come about while waiting for burger machine orders, or while waiting for the stoplight to turn green, or while running all over new york city haggling for broadway tickets?

marcel said reflection is the only way to make life rich and meaningful (well, as i recall anyway... yun naman talaga yung sinabi niya diba?) he even went to such lengths as formulating primary and secondary reflection so that a person would be able to ruminate about his or her life properly and ultimately delve into the meaning and purpose of his or her experiences. without looking back, life would be a flat, one-dimensional plane, a simple chain of occurences that allows a person only to live from one day to the next - a linear form of existence that fails to become a coherent whole.

but what if there are no experiences worthy of reflection? anais nin, a french-born author (who, incidentally, led a double life - she was a bigamist, being married to two different men who had absolutely no idea of the other's existence. the husbands only found out about each other after anais nin's death. she is known for her published (censored and uncensored) diaries, and erotica), said "we write to taste life twice." what if there's nothing significant enough to taste again? or, what if there are things to "taste," but it's too bitter that it's not something you'd want to go through again? what if these involve asking questions that either 1) you thought you already put behind you, or 2) think you'll never have the answers to?

so much for emo. domestic saturday nights have that effect, probably. that, and having to read another 125 pages for consti law for monday, which i have to get started on tonight if i want to be able to sleep properly.

i probably just am in a very weird stage. you know, in the in-betweens, where you know that you don't want anything new with anyone, the right guy or otherwise, but you don't want to get back together with anyone from the past either. it's floating somewhere in the middle, where just the thought of building a new foundation with someone else is tiring, but you're not sure if you're ready to go back to where you came from. limbo years.

****

do you remember yourself in high school? do you know the difference between yourself now and yourself like, 6, 7 years ago? (aside from all the physical changes of course. damn you awkward years!) do you know how much you've learned or how much you've accomplished? are you really any wiser? we used to think as kids that we already knew some things. now, however, we look at kids and ask what do they really know. but honestly, do you think you actually, constructively know better? sure, we've definitely gone through more than them - more sleepless nights, more tears, more laughter, more music, more television shows, more roadtrips, more drunken evenings, more crazy stunts...but, does the 7-year age gap really give you THAT much leverage? i mean, my sister had her first-born son at around my age. god, if i had a son now, i would have absolutely no clue what to teach him. would knowing where the good places to eat are be good enough?

i don't know. i think i'll just watch west wing.

who's afraid of the dark?

i've been afraid of the dark for the past four years. i haven't slept alone since second year college, and if i need to do so, i sleep with all the lights on and the television running (yes, i waste energy). pulled-out chairs, half-opened closet doors and empty unmade beds always manage to keep me awake, and try as i might to sleep with the lights and tv off, the thought of waking up in the middle of the night to a dark room is enough for me to rush to the light switch and search for the remote control.

i always thought this quirk of mine was one of the best reasons to get married. of course, there's love, companionship, children, yada yada... but what better way to get a peaceful, fear-less night's rest than to know that you're always going to be sleeping next to someone who will either protect you from things that lurk in the dark or affectionately, albeit a bit meanly, laugh off your fears and hug you anyway? knowing that i have someone, for better, for worse, who will stay next to me while i sleep will make me able to securely walk to the bathroom and pee without any scary thoughts running through my head.

last night, though, i took a risk and went to bed for the first time with the lights and tv turned off. nothing happened. well, of course nothing would happen! what did i expect, really??

well, there are still those other reasons to get married, i guess. =)

solid ground

you hugged my leg today.

you know i've always loved leg hugs. funny, because you also know how much i hate my legs.

in between filling up would-be awkward silences with things that were and things that would have been and should have been, you still manage to make me ask questions i thought i had answered a long time ago.

limbo years

a day in my life.

6 am: first alarm of the day
7 am: struggle to get out of bed
7:30 am: into the shower
8 am: dress up. crack the books open. start coloring the paragraphs with yellow high lighter and blue pens.
11:30 am: brunch. raid closet for an outfit that'll pass the dress code

12:15 pm: take a break before leaving for school
12:30: get in car and get tangled in the traffic jam to powerplant.
1:10 pm: park car in basement one of the powerplant mall
1:20: review for first class at 2pm.
2pm: consti (is RA6735 unconsitutional or merely inadequate? can we amend the constitution or revise it?)
3pm: philo (evolve for us a theory of law based on kelsen's pure theory of law and aristotle's corrective justice. is davide's impeachment case a claim right or a privilege?)
4pm: persons (when are presumptive legitimes required to be delivered? is Z, child of X and Y, where X is married to M, entitled to support from grandparents?)
5pm: end class. pick up new readings at the photocopying center.
5:15: rush to the parking lot to try and get ahead of the rush hour madness in edsa.
5:20pm: get robbed by rockwell another P45 for parking

6:30: thank god for finally getting home after ten million hours of dealing with annoying buses and drivers just as tired as me
6:32pm: quick dinner, bit of rest
7:10: start coloring my books again
11:30: check mail, blogs, inquirer for news and entertainment. see if awake enough to watch west wing
12am: zzzzzzzz....

some interesting things i learned today...

custom and duty both have two meanings, the first is that both refer to taxes that one has to pay in order to bring things inside the country.
the second is they both connote traditions or rituals that we adhere to as a community.

this is so because law stemmed from customs and duties of the community. a village followed customs, and it was their duty to uphold these traditions throughout the years. because of the emergence of law (the primary purpose of law in some theories is census-tax - essentially, for the profit of the ruler), custom and duty eventually evolved into a word used to connote tax as well, as it became a custom and a duty to pay the state.

see, THAT is the interesting part of my day. ew.

i'm turning into a very boring person! this is the side effect of law - i can already feel myself becoming more dull everyday. i'm falling into such a rut!

22 years

around this time of year, things always get crazy.

it was always plagued with first trimestral exams in high school and long tests, defense and deadlines in college. i thought it might be different this year. busy sure - it's law school, of course. but, in line with tradition and in true law school fashion, something major had to come up - moot court.

won't bore you with the details of that one stressful event, but suffice to say that preparations for that kept me awake for three nights straight, glued to my laptop looking for stuff and stats on gay marriages, and attached to readings three inches high about false beliefs held on to by moralists (gay marriages? gasp! public health issue! legalization will begin a pandemic of diseases! the fertility rates of a country will decline! kumusta.) need a gay rights advocate? call me.

i spent the first 5 hours of the 7th awake and typing away at my computer, desparate to finish a memorial (i.e., paper to give to the "justices" that we will plead to stating our position and all evidence pertaining to the same). thank god for birthday messages that brought bright spots during the wee hours of the morning. =)

friday morning, 7:30 am. first cup of coffee to keep me up after yet another sleepless night. i come from my brother's house in magallanes, bring him to his office right behind AIM, and get lost in the maze of makati on the way to rockwell! i reached makati central fire station,kamagong, and mckinley park, before i reached rockwell - it took me a good 45 minutes to get from AIM to rockwell. death to one way streets and no left and U-turns.

after the moot (we won best memorial! my partner won best oralist! yay! =)), i went straight to discovery to decompress. after ten million hours of waiting, of changing rooms (cos they booked me a room with the wrong size), dealing with wilted salad leaves, paying corkage (death by corkage), going up and down the floors of the hotel to get my stuff, spilt spaghetti, i finaly, finally received a call from the receptionist saying that my friend regina lejano was knocking on my door.

sigh of relief. =)

here's to the past 22 years. =)