Just one wish

"There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries"

I spent most of the day watching the last 6 episodes of season 4 of One Tree Hill and it ended with this quote reverberating inside my head. For some reason, the things that are happening in my life seem to reflect the words of Shakespeare.

There have been a lot of times in my life that has made me afraid of what the future holds. In most cases, it is my undying hope that give me the boldness to face it and just take the plunge to believe on whatever good it might lead me. To be honest, my moments of boldness are actually at the same time my moment of being the most afraid yet choosing to be bold and allow things to come.

It was the same boldness that fought hard to put me back in this Academy. A period of not really knowing what to do but just doing what is immediate at that point of time. Eventually finding myself at the doorsteps of my dreams. It was also that boldness that fought hard against Calculus wanting to stay alive despite my classmates falling one by one in my midst. This time it is also the same boldness that I look forward to the day when I finally pass my Physical Fitness Test even as I dread the time when all I can think of is the possibility of not meeting the minimum requirement of that test. I am really just doing everything that I can believing that just like always it will turn out fine.

But the thing that I am most afraid of right now yet I face with boldness are the things that are going on inside me. The so many emotion that seems so much for me to process yet I have to deal with everyday. I am beginning to think that the world revolves around me in a manner that blurs so many of the things that I want for my life. Sometimes, I wonder if the things that are in me are still ME.

I have learned from experience that when everything seems to be so confusing the best decision is always to believe on love. So in all of it I tried to find the love out of it and then just believe it regardless of how I feel. The choice becomes harder when it does not boil down to me but on other people and all I have to do is have faith. I may say a lot that I have faith on things but saying is very much different from what is happening inside of me. The anguish that I try to live each day constantly wondering if what I have been doing will lead to what my life is for. With loving, I have to allow people to be themselves and tell myself everytime that love does wonders that I do not understand. Its like waiting for a miracle to happen, hoping that things will fall amazingly in my favor but still trying to get in terms that if it does not happen then God did not want it to happen that way.

I know that after sometime, I will look back at this entry and say to myself how stupid I was to doubt my faith or how insane I was to think that what I am thinking is even remotely possible. Either way I will have to deal with what is it that will happen. But for now, the feeling inside me frightens me. It frightens me not because I am afraid of how things are to end but because for quite sometime I realized that I never wished for something as badly as I am wishing for right now. I realized that what I am wishing for will actually define the life that I will lead.

To live and to die

Earlier today, I came from a little gathering with the Superintendent. He hosted us to welcome our new Assistant Superintendent. Being the person that he is, who always had a way of inspiring the cadets, I can't help it but be emotional of how he hard it was to mantain a certain feeling in the past weeks. Like him, I also felt that the previous week was more like a roller coaster ride.

This morning, a group of my classmates participated in a Fun Run for a cause called "Takbo para kay Toledo." It was a fund raising campaign initiated by the members of PMA Class 2006 to help their valedictorian who is now sufferning from the rare Bile Duct Cancer. I think many will remember his story as the one shown at Maalaala mo kaya a few months back. On the other hand, last Friday, somewhere in the south, three of his classmates (my upperclass) together with one member of Class 2005 was killed in an encounter with the Abu Sayaff Group. The irony of it is that as one PMA graduate struggles to extend his life while down there four other PMA graduates are gone.

In the previous death of 2Lt Camelon, I was able to stop my tears, with the four recent deaths, I failed. How does one accept death as a natural occurence of life when it happens so sudden to those of us who have come to accept it as such? As I said Death is death but to say that it is simply death is simply a insult to the life that these people have lived. And it is basically because of the same reason that we join hands and do everything that we can to keep Lt Toledo alive. To allow him to just pass away without a fight is an insult to the life that he lived. And I really think that the statement is true to all of us.

With the reality of death getting into me more and more each day as we mourn the death of several of our brothers in arms comes the emergence of really facing living and dying in its genuine form. To face it and deal with the issues of how to live and how to die. Life becomes so real that I can't help it and ask myself if I am giving justice to this life I am living?

The love that overflows

In a correspondence with someone I know, our topic, although not explicitly, revolves on the love that we have experienced in our lifetime. When we talk about our family so fondly, or about how experiences changed the way we are as a person, we are in fact speaking of the love that we experienced. With that said, I will be writing about the love that overflows.

There are two things that can happen to a person. To accept love or not to accept it. Either way the person is still loved. If you come to think of it, there is never an instance in this world that one is in lack of loving, its just a matter of acceptance. I realized that the month of loving we experience solely depends on the amount of love we want to accept, this then goes on to say that those who say they lack love lacked acceptance. We will never really know how loved we are. Not that it should be taken negatively but the thought that the love we can experience can not be measured is a promising prospect that life in this world is indeed wonderful (that is if you consider being loved as a good thing).

Now the reason I am saying all this is because for most of us, we tend to think that love is something that requires other people. Especially this generation, we think that love is there to be found, the truth is: IT IS THERE TO BE EXPERIENCED. I am saying that love is not a feeling of some sort it is actually a part of our life, an experience that is for our taking. It is not borne out of intricate formula that came from a brilliant mind, but rather it is the proof of our existence that simply overflows everywhere.

The point of all this is love is a natural result of living this life the way it should be lived according to the purpose that we were created. Being borne out of love means that we are creatures of love which is also the reason why we are capable of doing so. In the end to live is to love and not to love is to be a walking dead person.

I guess it will be hard to accept that there are indeed difficult situations, lives that are ruined but in all this its just a matter of realizing that love overflows and its all a matter of acceptance.

I love you people!!!

9th National Debate Championship

The Academy will be hosting this year's 9th National Debate Championship. Being part of the organization that spearheads the hosting of this event, I was tasked to come up with the website to advertise this event. I am proud to announce that the website is now online for those who wish to know how are the preparations for this event. This is also an advance information for schools who wish to participate. Just click on the link below

9th National Debate Championship

Enjoy!!!

The lives that reverberate

I did not expect things to happen this fast, another one of my upperclass is dead in Sulu this time the person is closer to my heart.

With the life that we live here, living in constant interaction, force to socialize, people do stick to us and without our knowing we develop a kind of connection that perhaps makes up for the kind of brotherhood thing obvious among PMA graduates. In Sulu right now, there are countless of possibilities. The soldiers fighting there right now might be someone that I used to share a table with, someone who scolded me for doing something wrong, someone I simply know.The truth of the matter is, I do not want to know who is there, I'm afraid.

This morning another deafening silence came inside the mess hall. Before we were to take our breakfast, the First Captain announced: "Let us offer a one minute prayer to the late... so and so, of PMA class so and so... who died in an encounter yesterday in Sulu." In two consecutive breakfasts two of my upperclass are dead.

A friend of mine said: "But if i go on and ponder much on losing life and losing them, I'll just end up hating life." She is right but thinking about the people that we've lost in the past days, I really can't help it but ponder. Ponder on the fact that it was just yesterday that they wore the same uniform as I am wearing. I can't help but ask why them of all the many soldiers out there. And the most frightening, I'll be there in seven months. Yet I do not want to hate life. I love life and I will live it. The fear in me keeps on telling me things, yet I know I am where I should be.

People die even if they do not fight in Sulu. Although the thought can be promising the fact that they die is not that promising at all. Perhaps there is not promise. If it's your time it will be your time and not even an avoidance of war changes that. I am expecting the situation to escalate in the next coming days. Now with two more battalions conducting combat operations it will become dirty. More of my upperclassmen will come (I heard our new graduates who were assigned in Luzon are being recalled to be sent to Mindanao) and I know, even if I do not want to, some of them will have to pay the ultimate sacrifice. Their names will reverberate in my head every time the dreaded one minute prayer will be done in their honor. But then this is the life that God gave me and in seven months time, I just might find myself side by side with them. My prayer is that I will be ready when that time comes.

The lives of those who perished is never wasted for their spirit lives on telling me and I hope all others that life is but a mere expression of the purpose we are set out to do. My life will be just like that hoping that my fate will be good to me. Let us keep on praying to all the soldiers fighting for this country. Someday, I know we will all understand it.