Bothered conscience continued

Nothing changed much as of the last time I wrote about this thing that happened to me last weekend, the only difference now is that I am more determined to correct this rather than just run away.

My weakness has always been women. I mean no matter how good I am at telling people how to go about with their relationships I always mess up my own. At a point when I am just so confident that all is well, everything just comes crashing in and I then ask myself why was I so stupid. Yesterday, a parent of a plebe ask me if I had a girlfriend. From that question began my tale of how I see this phenomena. I told her that being a cadet, it is never easy to find someone who really likes me for who I am. I know I am not perfect, in fact I am very aware that I have so much flaws that people will totally hate me. But the uniform that I wear somehow hides all that. There are just some people who become so affected by all the glamour, prestige, popularity and all other good things associated with my alma mater that they forgot that deep inside the cadets are in fact human beings just like all the others who would want to be liked, loved or even hated for their true person. I hate it when people do not see me beyond my being a cadet. I hate it when all they see is that I belong to this institution as if I am not a real person. And so there goes my story to that plebe's mother. I told her that I was simply a young man who wanted the same things that most of my peers want but is confronted by circumstances that forces someone to live in constant misconception. It is a situation where the things that I want to be is hidden by the things that my institution has created for me.

And so here I am putting everything out in the open. I am doing this because to a certain extent I enjoy the attention that sometimes I forget who I really am. The thing that bothers me is that I have abused this attention only to realize that I have done irrepairable damage to another person. Its not as if this has not happened before, it has in fact, I felt so bad about it, but then again I failed into the same trap, almost the same situation and now I want to fix this once and for all. This is the contradiction. This is because no matter how good a person wants to become, at some point he will succumb to temptations; at some point he will become stupid; and at some point he will learn his lesson the hard way. I believe that through this expression I will learn. My road towards overcoming my weakness has opened up in front of me and I am taking that route in full speed. Well I guess that is just how it is.

A bothered conscience

I just came from church and felt really bad. I did not feel bad over what I did, I felt bad on myself, it was a case of a bothered conscience.

I would like to think that I was always a good person. Not that I haven't done anything that was bad but because there was never a time that I intentionally really wanted to hurt people. As much as possible I weighed things in a manner tha was fair according to my own perspective of what is fair. I despise people who take advantage of other people's weaknesses and always wanted to give people the real deal of the things that I want to do that involved them. But yesterday was different. As if in one swift motion,I found myself betraying the very things that I believe to be fair and just. I hate it but temptations are just everywhere and we only realize that it is leading us to something bad only after we have fallen into the trap. Now, as I write these thoughts, I wonder if will I ever go back or can I ever redeem myself to the person that I abused and taken advantaged of. I am now thinking of opening up to an older person that I truly admire but somehow I am still bothered by thie guilt feeling I have inside plus the things that the person might think of me once I bring it out. When one has already done the bad deed, it is easier to just forget about it and remind one's self not to do it again, but for my part I just can not ignore my conscience who keeps on telling me that I had to do something. My conscience tells me that I had to correct my mistake and now, I am beginning to understand that it will cost me more that I can think of. I'm sorry but I just do not want to go into the details. I am still not prepared to reveal everything, maybe in time or maybe I will just camouflage it in the other things that I write, I simply do not know. What I do know is I will have to deal with it and pray to God that He will see me through.

New people I met

At around 3 am the other day, my cellphone received a business card from someone I do not know. The number was a she and after saving it, I just didn't bother anymore. A few moments the owner of the number rung me and so I sent a message asking who she is. To make the long story short she agreed to come to PMA and meet me personally bringing with her food that I like(some things really never change, nagpapalibre pa rin ako... hehehe). And so we talked for several hours about things in our lives. The things that she shared gave me new insights that I would like to share in this blog.

I was never always a good boy. I mean there was a point in my life when I tried doing things that if I continued to do would have destroyed my future. And so as she shared to me her life, the bad things that I did before seemed to go back to my memories. Somehow, I felt that I had to share to her the lessons that I learned during my own mischievous episode hoping that I can prevent her from wasting a part of her life. But as we went on with our conversation, I also realized that there are just things in every person's life that has to happen for that person to understand. Inasmuch as I want to help her, it was simply not my call to tell her what to do, I just have to allow her to go through the process just I went through my own process.

Its a wonder why sometimes we just have to watch people get hurt for us to be able to help them. I realized now that to a certain extent protection is not always the solution to a problem. As each of us go through our life we learn from our experiences, sometimes from others' experiences. But I know that everyone will agree that the best lessons in our life are those whose wounds we actually felt and whose solution we figured out ourselves.

Well, thats it for now, I will just write some more the next time around

Missing People

Academics has begun. I just hurdled to orientati0n on the subjects I will be taking for this semester and somehow I think I can relax a bit and still get good grades. With me being a secondclass now I kind of have a more relaxed environment compared to the previous years. Except for the plebes who constantly occupy me, the rest is just a breeze and friendster is starting to make me miss people. Just a while ago I was browsing through pictures in my high school classmate's account and I sure did feel so alone here in Baguio. I'm beginning to like the idea of spending my next break in Dumaguete especially after hearing stories from my upperclass who went to Dumaguete last Independence Day. I'm crossing my fingers that maybe they will allow cadets to facilitate the entrance exam this year, I will sure do everything just to be allowed to go to Dumaguete. And so I just release all this feelin in this blog just as I always do when I feel this way... well I just have to deal with my situation, maybe smile every now and then but still I miss the people.

The other people

Most people who know me well would say that my personality is so strong tha some people may get intimidated when I assert myself. I have had many experiences where people just hate my guts because I seem to know it all, very noisy and brutally honest. But then, I must say that its not something that I intend to do. I am just the type of person who is not so much affected with the way people see me. The friends that I really become close with are those who know me inside and out, who understand that I am not really a bad person only someone with annoying habits. And so I come here, don the cadet uniform believing that life will be well with the way I am as a person.

Unlike when I was a civilian, I can just walk away from people that do not like me, but then in PMA its a totally different story. In my plebe year, I had to submit myself under the authority of people who do not like me, harder still is that these people simply do not understand the way I do things. They assume that I just some stubborn person who is a threat to their upperclass ego. I wonder how they still feel threatened when the stripe they wear simply explains why I can not do anything against them. But I survived, when my first stripe grew, I reckoned that I individuality is the way to do it even inside this Academy. I encoutered some difficulties but I still managed and in time I was to wear another stripe. Now, I have three plebes under my watch and I wonder if the same principle still applies.

In the previous years, I can afford to alieanate the people that do not like the way I do things. I can survive with little friends. But now, can I alienate the people that will determine the success of how I do my job as a squad leader? Can I allow individuality affect my responsibility to my subordinates? The question haunts me as I aspire to do a good job at the responsibility given to me. As I put it in the latest Corps Magazine, responsibility just changes a person. And it is changing me big time that I am a little bit apprehensive on how things should be done. Suddenly I do not have that much confidence whether I can accomplish the task set before me.

In the way we deal with things, I realized that now other people matters. Even if they do not determine the outcome of it, how they react will affect the outcome of any task. We are in fact living in a world where everything is so close-knit that you affect another consciously or otherwise. When I begin to do my duty, I am haunted by the effect I have on people especially on the question of that effect being a good or bad one. The bottom line of it all is that when responsibility takes over the people around is already a consideration especially when their life depends on the decisions that you alone make. But then again, its not as if I have a choice. The reality is I have to succeed for the success of my being a squad leader will affect the future of three cadets who like me wanted to take advantage of the PMA experience. I hope

News bits....

The mid-year issue of Corps Magazine is out....

We're back at Academics... I survived summer camp..... YAHOO!!!

Its a brand new start... I'm crossing my fingers... grabe second class na ako.... nagsimula akong magblog dito plebo pa lang ako... time really flies so fast...