Just Nostalgia

How much involvement can one really have on the things that he watch? I wonder now as I try to take my thought away from being so pissed at the turn of events of the Drama Series I am currently watching.

A couple of years back, I got hooked up with watching Dharma and Greg. I sure did enjoy Dharma's eccentric antics and Greg's conservative disposition. But more than that, the show somehow took me out of the things that I did not want to put myself into. The show basically brought be some place when all that matters is that the two main characters will patch up their differences and stay together.

I am contemplating on the realization that I can be so carried away when I begin to like what I watch. Believe it or not, even as I type this entry, my feet is like telling me to run back to the barracks and continue watching the show that I was pissed about earlier. Perhaps being the person that I am, I just can't help it but allow the emotional side of me to carry me through my world.

I realized that it speaks so much of the kind of personality I have. I guess the more I try to understand myself, the more I become sure of what I want. And maybe, the fact that I am somehow isolating myself to the "world" has given me this opportunity to be with myself and enjoy it.

A few days ago, I decided to just walk. After eating supper, I started walking. I figured I had plenty of time (around 30 minutes) so I decided to take a really SLOW walk. I did not bring along anyone with me, I just wanted to be with myself. Well, here in PMA, its not like I have so many places to go to when walking, so the place wasn't knew, it was more of contemplation of the things that happened to me in the past years that I am in this place. I look at the Flirtration walk and remember my framed picture at our house long time ago where I was wearing a red jumper and was 4 years old. I look at the cadets praying (the plebes especially) and remembered how I used to cry when I pray back when I was a struggling plebe and pleading for God to help me continue. I see upperclassmen talking to their plebes and remember how I used to do the same hoping that I get my point across despite of the fact that I make their lives a living hell. I remember the few times that I had to run the same ground because I was complying and order as a punishment to a laxity I made. In the 30 minutes that I was just walking the place, it came to me that I just might miss the place when I finally leave it in 8 months time. I realized that the reason why I wanted to be out of touch was because I simply want to start saying goodbye to this place. Believe it or not, inasmuch as I look forward to finally graduating, I hate the fact that I am leaving.

I'm sorry that I seem to not go into being insightful and once again center on my ego. But I guess, although I am not depressed, I am nostalgic. How do you leave a place that gave you your dreams?

Detached

Detached. That's what I call myself now.

Early in June, my phone was confiscated and for some reason I wasn't too sad about it. It somehow felt that I was gaining freedom, freedom from my world outside of PMA. As if this moment I do not know exactly what is happening outside of Fort del Pilar. I do not know who won for Senator nor do I have any idea what is happening to my family. I'm just living my life everyday, not worrying or perhaps not wanting to know what is happening beyond the grasp of my little world here.

I am not turning into a hermit. Aside from watching American Soap Operas, enjoying my dancing lesson for PE and doing my job as the Company Personnel Officer, it seems that for the first time in my more than three years stay in this Academy, I'm finally letting go of all my worries beyond cadetship and just enjoy every bit of my being a cadet. Of course, there are still things that I worry about. I sometimes think of this girl and fear that she might forget me. I wonder what is happening to my younger brother who is in the States now for some training for his Job. I wonder if my niece remembers me. I wonder so much but leave it to that and try to live life here. In 9 months time, I will never be able to return to my current state and all my worries will go back. I am thinking of just being here for some reason I feel some kind of fulfillment of being in this place enjoying every bit of the Baguio climate, with free everything, graduate and make a life.

But the thing really why I am doing this is simply because I think that I am worrying too much. The more I worry, the more I lose sight of what I really want to do. The more I worry, the more I forget that in the end the things in my life will never be up to me, it will be up to what God has intended for me. There are times at night that I have my usual feeling of loneliness, of missing people or just wanting to do the things that my friends back at home do, but with no option to do it, I retreat to the world that I created for myself and thank God that I have something like it. Sometimes we try so much to live life without actually living it and perhaps what I am doing is really to just live it. I did not plan for this nor do I have any idea how long I will be able to keep up, but being with myself now is perhaps the most recent enlightening experience I have had since I became a cadet again.

For all the people looking for me, I'm just here in Fort del Pilar doing whatever it is that I have to do to graduate. Surprisingly, although I think about a lot of things, I'm happy.

Randomness of thought

If in the previous years, I almost always felt lonely about being here in Baguio, I'm feeling different this time around. I thought this feeling will just pass, but then it stuck to me and I am beginning to think that I will be having the same emotion for long.

Last week, my phone was confiscated. I am hoping that I will get it soon but for some reason, I seem not to be that interested in having it returned to me soon. For no apparent reason (at least nothing that I am aware of), I am contented with being detached from "civilization" with the internet being the only way to find me. How weird is that?

Just before I went to Nueva Ecija last month, I started watching the series One Tree Hill. Yesterday, I finished the 15th episode of season 4 and I hate the fact that I can not find the continuation of the season. For some reason, the DVD ended in the part where Peyton meets her stalker just before she goes to her senior prom I do not know what happens next. So I started watching Numb3rs, I'm enjoying it but I still can't help but wonder what happened at One Tree Hill. Moral lesson: always buy a complete season. :)

Well life is better now, considering that I am at the very top of the cadet hierarchy already and of course, graduation is just 9 months away. I am not worried much, I am just very eager to enjoy the rest of my remaining days as a cadet.

Anyway, its not like everything is good. If things are well in most things about my life, there is still one area that makes me wonder everytime I am by myself. As I said to one friend, I am at a stage where life seems to lead to happily ever after and my problem is not about going towards it but having someone to share it with. Well it is still the same thing as before, the same girl, the same confusion. But then again, its not as if its the end of the world, I am believing that everything will come into place in God's time, I just hope it will be sooner... I hope you are reading this...

Feeling the pain

I'm not writing another entry about the Army, I will put that on hold first and try to deal with something I wanted to share.

I have been open to the fact that my mother died of cancer. I have often written about being beside her while she screamed in pain and just hearing her prayers. That experience formed the foundation on my belief that God does give us rest even in painful situations. The pain may not subside but there is this inner peace that God brings when we call upon him amidst painful situations.

About a few days ago, I found a few friends in friendster that have been in similar situations. Just as always, I am amazed how they find comfort knowing that God will be there to take care of them despite their condition. I am not happy because of their condition, but I am happy that because of their condition, they experience God working in their lives day after day, how many of us can really say that.

In a book I read a few years ago, it basically answered the question "Where is God when it hurts?" The author used the example of leprosy to make his point. In the early days, when medical science wasn't that advanced, many people thought that leprosy was the disease of the unclean. They described it as a condition for people who are literally decomposing even when they are still alive. Now, modern science has learned that leprosy is actually a defect in our body's reaction to pain. Experts have learned that reason the body "decomposes" is that our body can no longer feel pain thus, it is abused and then degenerates. In one example, there was a man who played his guitar so hard that his hands began to bleed. Because he had leprosy, he is unaware of the pain and so he continues to abuse his hand until finally the hand comes off with him still unable to feel the pain. That is the same reason why rats can just tear off a tissue on those with leprosy without them feeling pain. Leprosy is in fact a condition very similar to the pain we experience in our day to day life.

In an article in Newsweek recently, Sam Harris, a noted atheist, had a dialogue with Rick Warren, author of the phenomenal Purpose-Driven Life, about faith. I may be biased, but the thing that struck me was how Mr. Harris has pointed out various "painful" events that has led him to the conclusion that God really does not exist. I do not wish to debate on whose argument is better but I am just trying to point out how painful situations can in fact be blessings from God.

I, too, do not want to feel pain. I guess everybody does. All of us would want to live life without feeling and discomfort. That is the best way for us to succeed at the things that we do and be happy with our life. But just like pain when we cut ourselves, it reminds us that we are not invincible, that we are mortals. Pain reminds us that despite of all the things that we can do, there is still something more powerful than us and for me that being is God. If we are unable to fell pain, we will become proud of who we are and forget about other people. The acceptance that we can not do everything in this world is the beginning of wisdom and it is the foundation of faith... sometimes, it takes pain to trigger that.

We do not want to experience pain, but when you come to think of it pain does wonders. If we try to just think about the painful situations we have been into and think about how this events has changed our lives, you'll see what I mean. As for me, I am not wishing for pain, but I am believing that when I do experience pain, God is teaching me something and He will be there to guide me through it....

God Bless you people

Way Back Into Love (full version)

I just love this song...