Blog on a busy life

It has been a while since I was last able to really blog. My last entry was a short storyu that I wrote almost two years ago having decided to post some perviously written articles every now and then. But really, there are just times that I just want to write something in this blog. I just wasn to spit things out and clear up my mind. For some reason this is some kind of a theraphy.

The week has been so busy that I was not able to do some of the thigns that I promised to do. Coming from the hectic alumni homecoming, I thought life would be better not knowing that more is still to come. There is just so many deadlines to meet, projects to do and so many requirements to finish. I have never been this busy in school before and suprisingly I was able to manage. There is still one more multimedia presentation that I need to finish by wednesday, after that its finals week, Graduation week and then finally I am growing another stripe... Imagine I'll finally be in my firstclass year, my last year as cadet. Its surreal but I guess time just flies so fast and the responsibility is little by little dawning in my system. I am beginning to be worried whether or not I will be able to do a good job. We will just have to see.

I am not so sure if I will share this in my blog but somehow I think this will come out in my system so I would rather just put it out. My family is in the rocks again over some stupid thing that one of the people in it did. I will not put any details but this is some trial that people are getting worried about. Not that I am not concerned its just that to a certain point this is familiar territory so I am able to handle it better than the others. I do not know how it really is in the household since I am here but with the stories I am hearing, I am thinking that everyone is in some rough ride. I can just hope and pray that they will be able to go through it thriumpahntly.

I hate to admit it but with the many things that happened, I was not able to write my letter. this is the second week and I am beginning to worry how this thing is being interpreted by the girl who should be receiving this letters. There is just too much to do and I am really looking forward to being able to recover and do something really great for her. I do not know what it is but it is something. The thing is despite the many different developments in my life, she is becoming more and more important. Its something that I do not really understand but there is just this feeling of relief when my thoughts begins to dwell on her. This maybe some crazy thing, I really do not know but with everything that is happening, this is indeed a good spice that keeps my life more bearable despite everything. About a few days ago I reread this letter that I wrote last year for her that I did not send. The letter was so much full of emotions that I never thought I had in me. Somehow it describes all the emotions I am trying to hide because of the obvious gap that we have due to the distance and really not knowing each other. I guess what I am saying is that the adventure continues and just like what I always say in the many things that happen in my life, the wonders will reveal itself in due time... the key is patience.

I am stopping now, I will have to go back to the many things I have to do... I love you people....

Open Call

***

(Note: Since my writing career has ended, I decided to publish some of the articles that I have written in the past years. I will do this as I try to write some more this time for this blog. I intend to do to in this blog what I should be doing in the Corps Magazine if I was not booted out. For the meantime, I am posting some of the articles that I wrote before for the benefit of those who were not able to get copies of the Corps Magazine. I will put this under the label articles for better searching. I will also write some brief background on the articles that will be posted here. Here's the first:

This was published in the 2005 Academic Issue. Technically, this is the first short story that I wrote and is dedicated to someone I met during my first break as a cadet in March 2005. After being mesmerized by her on our initial meeting, I tried getting in touch but to no avail the distance can not be bridged that easily. This was the fulfillment of my promise to her to write something for her and also a way to release my obvious frustration about not being able to receive text messages from people you wish to text. Enjoy!!!)
***

“Message sent.”

The words lingered on my head as I watch those words appear on my cellphone screen with the backlight slowly dimming until finally it faded. My mind was filled with so many things when the message that I just sent came back into view.

“I have 30 minutes to use my cellphone, i-text nyo naman ako.”

The nyo word was actually a disguise to imply that I sent this message to others and I was just simply bored and that a text from somebody was very welcome. In reality, though, I just sent the message to a single person. For some reason, I feel that it was kind of weird that I wanted to start a conversation through text messaging with her. I kind of wanted it to look as if I was not that desperate to receive a text message from her. The whole study period, I have been thinking of how exactly I will begin something that would merit at least one message from her, or perhaps something that would begin a series of text messages that would at least show that we’re kind of—friends. I was suddenly grasping for ideas on how exactly I will get this lady’s attention. The idleness of my cellphone was not a good indicator. As time slips away I could imagine from the distant, somewhere in Quezon City, that she was actually ignoring me or maybe not. Maybe she is irritated by my obvious lack of attention or maybe she was simply tired or perhaps the more obvious reason, she had no call card balance. But why is it that although I am fully aware of the countless possibilities, I continue to be haunted by the most horrific reason one could come up, that she is ignoring me; pity me.

***

I was singing along with the radio. Although the volume was low, I heard the song clearly, it was my favorite, “Love moves in mysterious ways.” I realized then I had been seated at my desk for the past hour and had done nothing. After I had my dinner, I quickly retreated to my room for no apparent reason. I was simply tired. I thought surviving the day was a feat in itself. But then nothing much has really happened except for the endless “bonding” that I had with my friends. I just recently graduated my pre-law course and although I will begin law school in a few months, I am enjoying this break from school even if it will soon come to an end. So this is how life is when you have nothing else to do. A few months back, I was thinking of this elaborate plan on what I will do the moment I graduate. I thought all the while that I will be able to do everything that I have conceived in my head only to realize that after a while, I have done everything that I thought of doing. I glanced at my watch, it was 9:32. I realized then that I had practically done nothing for the past hour. But then, I have all the time in the world. The fact that I had done nothing for the past hour brought the feeling of contentment. I was contented simply because I know I was free. I was free from a schedule that would dictate when I will wake-up, when I will go on gimmicks. Now, I can sit on my desk for one hour and do nothing. It is indeed a good feeling.

***

My roommate entered the room and he was holding his cellphone. With a smile on his face, I knew right then what was going on. He had just received a text message from one of his girlfriends who was from Leyte. The smile signaled that something just came up. Maybe it was some sweet text message, a quote or something that just triggered this look that I see him in. I have always told him to stop fooling around but then he would always answer me that it was love he felt for all of them, that’s what he said. Well, what can I do, the fact remains that although I do not agree with his affairs, I was simply some nobody waiting for a reply from somebody who, for all I know, does not give a damn about my existence. If you look at it his way, I was some hopeless romantic trying to woo some girl some place far away, who possibly thinks of me as some mere acquaintance and he was the man, the heartthrob. There are times though that I kind of like the feeling that he gets from his escapades but when conscience sets in, I simply ignore the feeling. I always reasoned out that it is because of his antics that hopeless romantics like me are not able to get the good girls. I wonder how it seems too easy for him when in fact he just plays around while I’m still waiting for luck to strike. I just might get lucky and right at this very moment I hope the text message I have been waiting is that luck.

***

I heard the faint knock of our maid. When I opened the door, she just gave me my phone.

“Ate, may message ka.”
“Salamat po, Manang.”

There are two messages. One from a friend I met earlier. She was just asking if I was already home and also to thank me for our little girl talk. The other was from someone that I met a few weeks back. He was a friend of a friend that eventually found his way inside my circle of friends. There was nothing special really about this guy except that he studied at the premier military institution in the country; he is a cadet in the Philippine Military Academy.

“I have 30 minutes to use my cellphone, i-text nyo naman ako.”

As I read those words, I was confused. The truth of the matter is—I do not know him. Perhaps he thinks that some desperate text message like this will start something that would perhaps make me one of his textmates. Cadets are simply like that, at least that’s what I heard. A friend once told me that they have these text friends from all over. Some of these “friends” they actually court and eventually become one of their girlfriends then the cycle goes on. My father was once also a cadet but I never saw him to be that of a playboy. But then what do I really know about them. Even if my father is a general, I know very little about the military. In fact some people will be surprised that I was actually the general’s daughter. It really is nothing to me that my father has stars on his shoulders. I have nothing to do with him rising to that rank, and I did not have a choice being his daughter. But then although I think of it this way, this part of me seems to intimidate people. I remember how a sense of greatness is attached when the topic of me being the daughter of so and so is discussed. For some people it seems that I am this princess. With boys, this becomes part of who I am. It appears to people that I have this high standard with men, sometimes this becomes the reason why they simply do not try hard enough to woo me. But then again, I deserve someone great, there’s no rush anyway, I still have to go to school. Well, maybe this one is another one of those trying to get my attention.

***

The sound of my phone was music to my ears only to realize that the text message was not from her. The message was an advertisement about the latest promo on a certain movie, as if I can watch that movie. There was still no reply from her and I’m beginning to think that this might not be my luck day. I really think that what I am expecting as of this point is not too much of a request. I mean, a simple reply is not hard to do. Being in this place, I will just be happy knowing that at least she bothered. In reality though, I want something more than that. I want to go on a date with her. Maybe we’ll talk about things, maybe about the book I gave her when I attended her graduation party a few weeks back when I was on break. Maybe after that date, I will really get to know her and that I may find something that would further advance my interest on her. Maybe we can go to a cool restaurant I saw way back. I told myself then that I will bring a special lady there. I completely forgot about that restaurant until just recently when I was daydreaming about a perfect date with her. Maybe when I come back, I’ll send her letters, I mean real letters. Not those that is so impersonal that when the computer goes down, your letter also goes down. I imagine something like letters that I carefully compose during study period using the stationeries that are issued to us, just like how my father did when he was a cadet or maybe just like how her father did when he was a cadet. I’m not in love though. Even if just thinking of her tickles me from the inside and even if every night I pray very hard that God will give her to me. I still maintain that I’m not in love. How could I be in love when I do not really know her? Well, I may fall in love with her and that is why although desperate text message is not getting any good result, I’m still hoping that she’ll just notice me and be more than just an acquaintance, maybe share some insights or maybe share other things or maybe fall in love. Ah, will that ever happen.

***

“What is this guy trying to do?” I muttered to myself. He certainly is trying to get my attention, but why? Well the answer is really that obvious. A few days ago, when he went home to attend the wedding of his brother, he asked me to go out with him. After some thought, I realized I was not ready for something like that. I only met him twice and I was not to go out with somebody I barely know. He seems harmless though, and the fact that I am my father’s daughter perhaps gives me that little assurance that he has no bad intention. I declined his offer but told him to join me with some of my friends. I thought that was safer at least there will be other people around and I wouldn’t be feeling uneasy around him. Nothing happened much really except that we had some coffee and we basically did not talk much and then I had to go home while they continued in some videoke bar until morning.

“Sori, I can’t text you right now, I’m kind of busy.”

I gave it one last look and then sent the message.

***

The hallway was noisy. Everyone was walking towards the cellphone rack. Taps was about to sound and that meant that we had to surrender our phones. In a few minutes it will be considered Close call, it is the time when we are not allowed to use our phones anymore. I rose from my seat and walked towards the door when the bugle started to play the familiar tune of Taps. I just walked out of the door when the phone sounded. It was from her. As I was rushing to the rack and tried to read the message, my battery drained and the phone shut down. There was no time to charge now I’ll just read that message tomorrow. I hope it’s something I like.

Open call has ended with me still wondering what is it that I had to do to get her attention. The sad thing about PMA is that we simply do not have the time to meet people that we like. As for me, she was simply far away. No matter how good my intention is, she can’t possibly know it. I think no one can blame us if we cherish the little time we have for text messaging during open call it is the only way we can at least reveal ourselves to people. With me now, it’s the only way I can reveal myself to her. When most networks offered unlimited text and calls to their subscribers it became an instant craze to the cadets, that explains how lonely can it be. When loneliness set in even the simplest text message can bring a smile to a cadet’s face. As for me, I hope there will come a time that I will take advantage of those offers and I hope it’s because of her. Romantics like me can sometimes really be hopeless, why? There is no intricate explanation to that, within the walls of Fort del Pilar, when people are simply fascinated by our uniforms and the way we entertain them during parades and reviews, we hope people will pay attention beyond that fascination, even if only through desperate text messages.

I changed to my sleeping uniform, and then went to the computer to type the long delayed story that I was to submit to the Corps Magazine. Perhaps I could write something about text messages, about admiration or maybe falling in love. That’s an idea. I gazed at the blank screen then typed the first words:

“Message sent.”

Thoughts on the Alumni Homecoming

With the Alumni Homecoming Festivities over, I begin to explore on the reason that leads all cavaliers back to the Philippine Military Academy. I may not have all the answers but just maybe some insight will be gathered and this phenomenon can be understood.

Around this time last year, I wrote a similar article basically about the Alumni Homecoming. This time though, I intend to write it in the eyes of a second class cadet who has been part of the celebration not just a mere participant but living out the reason why the cavaliers go back for their yearly pilgrimage.

The day before the event, I was lucky enough to go to the city for some duty I have to attend to. This was the opportunity for me to pass through the road from Baguio City to PMA filled up with all types of banners welcoming the different classes that will flock the Academy. I remember the times when I ride in front of our van a few years back being marveled by the kind of entertainment these banners bring as we travel to PMA all the way from Manila. I even remember an instance when there was a banner as early as EDSA leading the Cavaliers as they trek to Fort Del Pilar. In a comical way, these banners do bring about fond memories of the wonderful days of cadetship.

In the afternoon after that, I stood in front of the mess hall observing the people that were roaming around. I presume many of them were Cavaliers as evident in the way they tell stories that I can not hear but was full of life as they relate it to members of their family who were following them behind. There were those who would want to see the mess hall just to be reminded how it was back then when they were heading up and chinning in amidst the shouts of their upperclassmen. People were everywhere yet it seemd that somehow they knew each other, their eyes were filled with some kind of nostalgia over the sights that were not new to them, the places that they were seeing where in fact once their home for at least four years of their lives.

Early in the morning of the Homecoming, I walked the side part of the Borromeo Field. It's serene stature, ready for the coming cavaliers. In a matter of hours, the grounds will once again be filled with the very same people that sweated it out in the same field. I could just imagine the millions of stories that the field before me holds. A few hours after that, as I don my full dress uniforms and the cavaliers passing in front of me, I can't help it but notice how the faces seemed to be just like the normal people you I see day in and day out. Others have grown beer bellies, have developed gray hair and wrinkles but still all of them marched in cadence with the bass drum just as how it has been in the last 50 years or so in the Academy. Finally at the end of the parade the thousands of people were silent as the band begins to play the Alma Mater Song. As I place my gaze at the many different people lined up in front of the grandstand, I can't help it but realize that in some way, the words of the song echo the same sentiment that they themselves have learned back in the days when they were wearing the same uniform that I was wearing.

Just like Alumni Homecomings of any school, it is an event filled with wonderful memories. But then, the difference with the PMA Alumni Homecoming is that it is filled not just with wonderful memories but also experiences that has forever changed the lives of the men and women who has donned the cadet uniform. Somehow, the many people who come back every February are those that were given a chance of a lifetime to make something out of their life and be a the best our of what they were given

Love on Valentine's Day

When February started, I received a text message with the following content:

"Dahil February na, magmamahal na ako -- Globe Unlimitxt"

Then just this morning, I had two messages, all of which were greeting me with Happy Heart's Day. Finally, my instructor in my first period class just had to greet everyone Happy Valentine's Day. I wonder how to go about these things.

I do not know if this is true in all places but there seems to be this unofficial tradition about Valentine's Day. Not that its a bad thing but just observing the things that are happening around at this time of the year, you begin to ask yourself if people really do things like how they do it on Valentine's day or is it just because of the season that suddenly settles inself inside the psyche of the people? Let us examine this phenomenon.

One may not have realized but in occassions like this most people will go out of their way to think about all the romance they can muster inside their system. Its like an inevitable feeling that convinces everyone that this is how things should be at this time of the year. It is interesting that at some point in a year in everyone's life, they actually make an effort to really love. The sad thing though is that after all the romance has faded away, the month changes, it is so easy to forget about love and just be reminded about it when February comes back again and everything is red.

In a conversation with my sister about a week ago, I was telling her about love being a state of a person and not some feeling. I told her that it is really not about the other person that we choose to love but its about the person that we become out of the love that we give. In my experience as a person who has always tried his best to give out love to the people I care about, I have learned that no matter how things will be we never lost in love, instead we find out things that we do not know existed. These things allow as to go on loving without really thinking of the outcome of the things that we do. I say that it is a state of a person for the primary reaso0n that it begins with a decision to just do it, letting go of ourselves and then allowing them to experience a part of us. There is no expectation of something in return, there is just this wonderful feeling that loving is enough and the assurance of a promise from God who created love itself. The wonder of love is not on its feeling but in its ability to understand and sustain things despite of everything that happens that in some way contrary to our common conception of how things should be. In the end it is about deciding to do it not because our calendar says its February 14, or that there is something that we can get out of it but for the simple reason that not to do it is a betrayal of the kind of person we were created in the first place.

I wonder if amidst all the romance that is around us at this time of the year, we have really made that effort to just love even when things do not seem appropriate for such feeling. It is the hardest thing to do yet the most noble. I do not know how to put this but having been through life and experiencing love from all types of people, I learned that love never leaves us. It always leaves a trail that always reveals to us the beauty and wonder of everything that is in this world.

So I stick to this definition in the Bible claiming the promise in the last sentence:

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails"

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Rereading the journal

I have around 10 minutes to type this blog, I hope to cover everything that I thought of writing before I came here.

I have not heard a bad comment yet regarding my Uncle Bobo article, its not that I am hoping some nasty comment will be given to it maybe at the back of my mind I was prepared to hear what people has to say about it. Anyway, I am glad I published it here. From now on, my supposed to be articles for the Corps Magazine will be published in this blog and I will label them so that they can be accessed easily, just wait for it I have other ideas in mind.

I while ago, I was reading my Purpose Driven Life Journal. It was a journal that is accompanied by the famous book by Rick Warren. About early July of 2004 (as a fourthclass) I decided that I will start doing the 40 days Purpose Driven Life on my own. It was a decision I made out of the realization that I should put my cadetship in a direction that is according to God's will for me. So I asked Faith to buy me one and if I remembered in right I have not paid her until now. so I started doing it but then sometime in October, I stopped writing. I do not know the reason maybe I just became tired of having to force myself write what I thought about something that I read when sometimes I jsut want to meditate on the new realizations that I had. I resumed it in December 29, because of a thought brought about by Grace (yes the lovely Grace) when we were talking during the Superintendent's Hop (she was my partner). I wrote some more until I stopped sometime in January when this blog was ressurected.

It was only today that I realized how much of the things that I aspired for during those times have come to pass without me realizing that at some point in my quest for God, He revealed to me that the things that will happen to me in the future. I was suprised to read that at one point I was writing my prayer only to realize that I have it now. But more on that, I also realized that I was feeling somewhat the same emotion about being uncertain of the things to come and then resolving to allow God to work according to His plan and that always He has never failed me. I guess my point is that in all that is happening in our life even if we are not aware, He guides us day by day ensuring that we walk in a path that is according to His plan.

I also remembered something that was trigerred by an event that happened earlier today at church. I still do not know if I should write about it in this blog since it is about certain people that I prayed for and for some reason I am seeing the fulfillment of that prayer. I had a realization this morning and it still bothers me up to this very moment. I am trying to comprehend if what I am feeling is actually the truth or am I just making it up because that is what I happened?

Anyway, in that journal I always end it with something and that is how I will end this entry.... Thank you for Grace....I love you people....