Firework

It's 12:10 of Saturday, and I'm studying crimes against public order. I've been reading for about five hours now, and only stopped to eat, talk for around 10 sweet minutes with him, and take the short ride home. I also listened to a few clips of American Idol, just so I can have some sort of diversion. All signs point to the fact that I will probably be staying up for a while longer: there are around 20 cases left and a good number of pages left in my Criminal Law book.

The drudgery and stress of law school, and I've mentioned this an awful lot of times already, can get unnerving. Whenever it gets to me, I try to remember what he told me: to think of the positive. And it is with such positive thoughts that I eventually feel better. I realize how lucky I should be for being here...and how even luckier I am for having him.

And when I come to think of it, there's so much more to be positive about. So fine, maybe there were days when my recitations were not at par, or when my classmates were being particularly competitive or critical. On the whole though, I'm in a pretty good place. And here's the cheesy part: I'm in love, and it feels really great!

Fine. I'm not driving at any particular point here. I guess I'm just trying to find a way to release my thoughts without having to actually interact. Everybody around me just seems so stressed lately. And also, a way to share this video I found on the Internet:

Happy Valentine's Day

I guess I let the pressure get to me. First off, let me say this little trivia: I don't ever remember worrying about Valentine's Day before. Sure, I did all the little celebratory stuff with friends and family, and at one time with a significant other when we were in a relationship. But this Valentine's Day is something else in at least three ways:

1. A group of friends in the block have this little agreement to have a Valentine's date for tomorrow. Whoever doesn't get one loses. This deal was made some months ago, and with the actual day a mere hours away, what's the result?

Zilch. None of them managed to find a date, and now they're posting all these queasy stuff in Facebook. 

2. Once I had lunch with a blockmate and M--easily one of my best friends in law school. It was one of those moments when we didn't talk about the stress of law school...they talked about something that, to me, seemed more stressful to them: the prospect of finding a husband.

They literally, categorically said that law school is the last chance for them to find a future husband. Once they graduate without a boyfriend, they said they would have to accept their fate: that they will be single lawyers forever. The more I think about it, the funnier the idea sounds--yet they were dead serious when they made the pronouncement. 

3. He and I had our advanced Valentine's celebration, and it was great in every way. But this means that we won't be celebrating tomorrow. Which means that I have a free date tomorrow, along with all the anxious souls in the block. It got pretty crazy: I even had a little fight with him about this, only until I realize the morning after that I have to be more than thankful that I have him. Every day, not just on Valentine's Day. And I guess not celebrating is the best thing to do. We're not exactly up and about, if you know what I mean.

Through it all, I don't hate Valentine's Day with the same passion my former debate partner in undergrad did. When I asked him last year what his plans for the day was, he told me that he didn't believe in commercialization and would in no way subscribe to sensationalized, Hallmark-fabricated events.

That's certainly one perspective. But really, would it hurt all the single people and those who wouldn't be able to celebrate on that day to just give happy couples a break and celebrate their love? Just a day? The alternative, I think, is much worse. Without an actual day to call Valentine's, I don't think every couple would bother to set a date for expressing their love. 

What I'm really saying is, without bitterness from an anxious guy who can't celebrate the day with the love of his life: Happy Valentine's Day! 

One for the Music

Listening to Taylor Swift feels like hanging out with an old friend. The super cool kind who just got back in town from her long tour and hasn't changed one bit. Still nice, even after all the glitz and glamour. Then she keeps on talking about the exciting things that happened to her--her dates with John Mayer, the way she turned down Taylor Lautner, the emotional stress of dealing with Kanye West's shit...and she won't stop talking.

I'm telling you this because my sister reserved three tickets for her concert this February. My sister, her boyfriend, and I. Yes, it's probably going to be weird. And yes, I am obviously the third wheel.

But there's something you have to understand about my sister. When I first found out I was beginning to have feelings for a guy a few years back, I told her immediately. She just got back from Baguio, and I sat with her at once to tell her the story. Thereafter I told her about every single boy that mattered. She wasn't necessarily crazy about it and at times even treated the entire thing with distasteful mockery, but that's how we are. That's how we express our twisted love for each other.

There you go. I'm going to my old friend's concert with my sister and her boyfriend, and it's probably going to be awkward, but who the hell cares. I'm fucking excited.

I'm not listening to her album at the moment though. Because like any friend who keeps on talking about her life alone without even asking how I'm doing, she can get overbearing. I'm listening, currently, to this:

I love Brandon Flowers. I love, LOVE Brandon Flowers.

I like the tone of his voice. I like the fact that he's bisexual and yet happily married with two children. I like how he acts in this video and how weirdly inappropriate it is.

His album is great. Promise. I hope he goes solo for a while, because his music sounds better on his own. I still love the Killers though. How can I forget the time when I tracked down the lyrics to every song of Day and Age and tried to understand what each song meant? The little activity got especially hard when it came to the line, "Are we human or are we dancer?"

At this point I want to thank you for being the most consistent friend as of late. You, my blog, don't act like a bitch when I don't talk to you (even though I talk to you more than I should) . I like how I can act all deep and shallow when I want to, shifting from one extreme mood to the other. And you won't judge me for it. You just listen, and I keep on talking. I should probably stop blogging and start living, because there's mutual exclusivity in the two, but where's the fun in that?

Something Close to Memories

I don’t know if I’m the only one who does, but do you ever stop and recall your earliest childhood memories? I don’t mean stopping in purpose and spending time just recalling. I’m talking about remembering, in a somewhat random twist of event, something that you’re sure happened to you at some point in the past. It’s difficult to completely explain, really. I don’t just recall them; they flood into me like a great rush, coming in all at once…I actually live in them—as if I were back in that time when I first slid down the dinosaur slide and thinking that it was the happiest moment of my life. Or when I was around four years old, I looked up in the sky and thought of how I was probably a protagonist of my own story and everyone else was just there to play along in their subordinate roles…and the realization years later that this was not true: I was not the main character of this world and everyone else had their own equally valid primary roles.

These memories will come one after the other, then I get zapped back to the present and I almost wouldn’t believe that I am years older and that so much has passed.

I remember how shit scared I was, watching Calvento Files with everyone in the family engrossed in their seats. The story was about a girl and his family, all of whom were ambushed by the girl’s former lover and his friends. They were sleeping in a hut when the killers came. They all died, except one who was able to hide in a room.

I remember how my yaya used to force me to feed on my sandwich when I was in nursery. She told me she’d have to cut my insides and place the sandwich in. Or that time when we would prepare for our classes, back when my sister and I were in elementary. I couldn’t finish my food, and my dad would watch over us, and I’d secretly give my food to the cat or scatter it all over my plate. Me looking at my then girlfriend from afar, realizing that I just broke her heart and feeling like a complete asshole. We're high school classmates, it was February 14, and I just broke up with her that afternoon.

But the odd thing is, I don’t just remember the memory. I remember everything—the emotions as I felt them during that time, the clear picture, the people involved…

When I try explaining this strange phenomenon to my few closest friends or even my ex's, I look in their eyes and I’m sure that they’re not taking me seriously. They'd shift to an altogether unrelated topic or brush it off, because who wants to talk about memories deeper than what they really were anyway?

But you see, these for me aren’t just memories. Something else separates them from memories, mere figments in my mind that I only vaguely remember. They hold emotions, and a sharp sense of clarity. And the reason why I fuss over them is that I get troubled and as emotionally invested in them as if I were living in that actual time.

It happened again this time. What triggered the sudden rush this time was a book I was reading: The Perks of Being a Wallflower. By reading the book, I’ve come to realize that I’m probably a wallflower, someone who observes too much and makes inferences...some of which are totally false, while most are correct. The greater realization, however, is that like a leech, I attach myself to certain events, movies, and books in my life. When I do, they become a part of me, a parcel of the totality of my emotional quotient. Like learning something new, but it's not even a piece of information or knowledge, but emotion. Raw and crisp.

I've probably bored or lost you at this point already. I'm not even expecting you to take me seriously. But it's always been that way.

Movie Week!

So many good movies are happening this week! No, they're not screening.. they're happening. Why am I a poor law student, WHY?

Anyway, I told a former classmate in Criminal Law 1 about this cute little trivia. I raved a little (okay, maybe I did rave a little too much) and how I want to see these movies so badly. He then responded, "Wanna watch?"

The bomb was dropped. I snapped back to reality. This is the same classmate who tried to be smooth with me and asked me to "hang out" after finding out that we live in the same town. The same classmate who pulled the "I'm a secret agent, but if I told I'd have to kill you" card on me. Yawn.

Although when I think of it, he may just really want to "hang out"...I think that's one of the most annoying things about this lifestyle. You can't really say for sure who wants to watch a movie with you as a friend or as a date. Why can't everything be black and white and be as it is?

The truth is, the sem has begun and I'm not studying ANYTHING. Which is why I'm blogging one post after the other. And which is also why I'm craving for human interaction, which I normally can live without for a day. Even porn isn't enough to fill the vast amount of time I have on my hands.

It's driving me crazy, the fact that I'm away from home already without anything to stress over. Except maybe the grades that haven't been released...It's just so weird, to be in law school and be so lenient at the same time.

I NEED TO BUSY MYSELF.

(And for the record, I know I am sooo going to regret saying this later on.)

Boy Meets Boy

The sembreak was short and sweet, but I managed to finish two books. One of them is Boy Meets Boy. I meant to read it as a little experiment; I've always limited my reading preferences to fantasy books (Robert Jordan, George R.R. Martin...okay, I'll stop talking now) or contemporary classics (which is really just a label for books neither I nor anyone can't quite group under a specific category). I figured this time, I should venture into gay teen fiction literature. So venture I did.

I searched high and low for gay teen fiction books and found that there are actually quite a lot of them. Sadly, not a lot of them can be downloaded as ebooks... which I know doesn't do the authors or the publishers justice but hey, I'm a poor law student solely dependent on his parents. Blah.

After two days, I can't help but conclude that this book, simple as its plot is, is easily one of my favorites. It's not so much what the plot contains but the mere fact that I took time to read it that makes this book so important to me.

As the title suggests, the story is about a boy meeting a boy. In a bookstore. The story gets a bit complicated when shortly after, it's revealed that Paul, the protagonist, has leftover feelings from his previous relationship with Kyle. His bestfriend, Joni, also becomes a pain in the ass when she starts dating some boy Paul hates. There's also Tony, a Catholic school boy, whose parents can't quite accept the fact that he's gay...ehem. Really, there's nothing more to it than that.

But there's something about Paul's life that I envy. At the risk of being a spoiler, I'm going to say very little of it. The utopian world Paul lives in and how he never takes serious flak for being gay might exist for real in this world, I suppose, but it doesn't exist in mine. Is it the world I want to live in? I'm not entirely sure. But will it macertainly ke things easier? Certainly.

I can sympathize with how Tony is feeling (very few would probably be able to relate, but I'll go ahead and say it anyway)--that I'd have to live with the circumstances. For the moment. And by moment, I mean roughly four to five years (perhaps even longer) until I become lawyer and be truly independent. Contrary to what other people might say, it takes a lot of courage to shut up, move forward, and withstand the pain in a sometimes unforgiving environment.

In the end, all I felt is happiness for the characters in the book and melancholy for myself. For them, life stops at their happy endings...unless the author writes a sequel, I guess. As for me, I go on, study like crazy, and open myself up to a world of possibilities that is gay teen fiction.

Any suggestions?

PS. By the way, I have an ebook copy of the book. If you want one, feel free to email me at arwindvera@yahoo.com. :)

Nice Imported Things

I'm going crazy. Since I was in first year college, I've either been working during summer vacations or crazily working on org activities that I practically never really took a day off. Now that I am on sembreak, I made it a point to relax and not to work...although fine, I did take one writing project.

Despicable Me, and Other Things

If I'm not mistaken, I performed terribly at our oral midterm exams in Family Law. I badly needed to get a high grade in that exam, knowing how poorly I do during recitations. I get to finish the cases, I understand the concepts quite fine, but when I get called and this professor calls on me...I melt. There's something about her apathetic gaze and mindless frown, her high-pitched disagreement and her palpable exhaustion that destabilizes me.

I knew the midterm exam was my only hope of ever passing her subject. So I studied. So hard--at least by my standards. Back in my undergrad, I wouldn't study as hard. But for this exam, I studied way before the exam--around 3 days before the actual orals. I memorized around 80 provisions, made sure I knew the details of around 100 cases. And yet, when I got my set of questions, some of them I couldn't even recall studying.

This is pathetic. Back in my undergrad days, I was the top hound. I would be late 40 mins after the exam had started and still get the highest grade. I didn't even have to study all that hard.

This is different. This is too hard.

So, as expected of someone like me, I broke down. In the MRT. In the bus. I can only imagine how pathetic I looked, but what my parents and my classmates told me just hit home. My mom, she told me she knew why I wanted to be a lawyer: I wanted to help the people. My closest friends knew how hard I studied for the exam--I literally devoured Filipino marriages. And me? I just felt that I had to release all of it, get the depression out of my system. So I grieved.

That thing they said about how it's okay to fail than to never have tried at all? I think it's pure bullshit. There's something so hurtful about trying so hard...and falling flat on your face. I just can't wrap my head around the fact that, from where I stand, I can't hit this thing spot on.

Don't get me wrong. I get tired of ranting as well. Too tired that, sometimes, I find myself sleeping at the worst moments. But that's another story.

Through it all, I know that I wouldn't quit--unless they kicked me out. I wouldn't quit because I'm not about to run away from my dream. I can't quit simply because I think I can't. I don't know when I'll stop standing up whenever I fail, but I guess that's the essence of learning: failing and failing...and failing. Which means I've learned far too much by now!

In other news, my boyfriend and I had a date today. To be honest, I was more excited about getting a haircut than watching a movie with him.

He doesn't understand why I won't let him in. Why I won't run to him whenever I'm weak and just want to break down. Why I won't let him be my crying shoulder. That's the reason why I we've been fighting for days now. He thinks I've built walls around myself. In a way, I concur.

That's one thing he still doesn't understand about me. I'm just too proud to cry to someone, anyone. I'd complain and surely, I'd whine. But cry on someone on purpose? For the intention of being comforted? I don't think so..

At the end of the day though, I had one, an ugly haircut, and two, a surprisingly good time with the boyfriend. We watched Despicable Me. While he liked it a lot, I thought it was a bit cliche and that the hype about Agnes was too overplayed for me to enjoy it like everybody else. Overall? It was a nice no-brainer movie that wasn't quite capable of pulling off the same emotions Dreamworks is able to get from me.

I realize that I love him. I still do. There are times that I think it's slipping away. When I saw him walking away under the rain. When he held my hand too tightly, until it was getting strained. Or when he told me how he disrespected his parents. But there are more times when I genuinely feel, deep inside me without being able to express it, that I love him and that I see myself at the end of the line with him.

But these are all thoughts. Without action, aren't they useless?