The wish

When I think of ideas now, they are usually hopeful desires of things that I want to happen in the future. I find myself wishing more rather than seizing the moment.

Yesterday, I was rushing back to the barracks to finish the movie that I was watching before I had to go to formation to eat my dinner. To my dismay, I had to contend myself with it jumping from one scene to another, pausing every few seconds and having to be restarted several times. It was an inevitable situation when one watches pirated DVDs. The other week, I complained to a friend how I wanted to kill whoever made the DVD that I bought since that person deliberately deleted the most important scenes in the movie Notting Hill. My guess is that he was trying to accommodate 14 movies in one DVD 9 disc. Right now I am wishing to see the movie again, complete with all the important scenes.

But really what I am hoping for right now are good things that I am wishing will happen this weekend. It is not always that I can be so persistent about something but the thing is that the thought has never left me and to just give up will somehow make me wonder whether or not I have really done enough. I am wishing now for some miracle to happen.

I wish...

This is my last year here so I think I have the right to make wishes. The other day, I discovered a way to put a sepia effect on my digital pictures. I decided that I will be spending the Hop on sunday taking pictures of my classmates in sepia. I just thought that it was a cool way to spend the night trying to save memories of our last Formal Hop (other than the Ring Hop that is) rather than feel sorry for myself because I was not successful in bringing the one person I wanted to spend it with.

I also wish that I pass my PFT and be able to make nine pull-ups. Apparently I do not know how to do the pull-up properly and I am learning it now since I have been doing it wrong all these years. Wish me luck.

I wish to jumpstart my brain to be able to start writing the script that is inside my head for this year's 100th Night Show.

I wish to be back with the Corps Magazine.

I wish to be able to go on privilege again.

I wish to sing in church again...

Oh, I almost forgot, I also wish for World Peace especially in Basilan and Sulu.

I just wish...

In and out of Makati

If you are wondering the reason for that last entry, well just wonder with me. In the past days I have been trying to write something. I actually was able to write around three entries that I do not find worthy of posting. Then finally yesterday, I just wanted to say I love you so I did it in my blog. It's weird really but then its my blog, I can write whatever I want.

My brother and I had this unusual habit of spending time inside Glorietta Mall. Since we lived about 15 minutes away, it was the closest place we can go where we can have some fun the way we want it. Most of the time, we do not have money to spend so we contend ourselves with one burger each and unlimited softdrinks from Carl's Jr. Our routine then is to sit somewhere near the entrance and then just watch people and talk about them. I remember how we try to mouth what two people were saying to each other or figuring out how long a certain couple have been together just by looking at the way they are together. It was so much fun until my brother had to go to school while I had to go to work.

My work then was also exciting in itself. I think I have written extensively about how fun my work was in my old blog. A while ago I was telling my stories in an e-mail to a friend who is now also working in Makati and remembering it brought back all the fun that I had while at it. I remembered how I marvel myself with the tall buildings that I go to and be amazed with how large the offices of their VIPs are. I remember usually telling myself then: "Totoo pala yung sa movies." I also recall how I walk along Ayala Avenue and be excited to go home because so many ideas came to mind that I want to blog about. Well, at the end of that e-mail I realized that I will not be able to experience that again as there is no military camp in Makati and that I will have to contend myself large expanse of forests to patrol, barangays that have not seen the Internet and of course the simple joy of a guitar and perhaps a good songbook. Well, at least I have my memories with me and who knows what I will discover in these places.

I remember a time when I hated Metro Manila. That was because I practically grew up in Dumaguete and I find the bigger city more fast paced and confusing. But working in Makati sure did changed my perception. I like the idea of walking through tunnels and interconnected overpasses that lead you to the best places like Glorietta or Greenbelt. I like sitting at Starbucks and entertain myself with how people go about with their lives. I like driving along Makati's red light district and wonder how prostitution be so indiscreet yet still unchallenged. Well the thing is Makati is an interesting place, not just because it's Makati but because there is so much about it than one can experience. Maybe I will have other opportunities to discover some more of the place.

One more thing... I remember it was in Makati where I first saw Jimmy Bondoc sing "Let me be the one" a few months before his career took off. It was a free concert and back then people were not that attentive to a not so known guitar clad singer.

Anyway, I just can't wait to go home for break in two months time. I love you people!!!

I love you

Beyond the fear that we have

I realized that the entrance exam is fast coming up and have not written anything to entice people to take the exam. I'm doing that now.

There are so many things people want with their life. I mean, like me, its not like I went here to fulfill some nationalistic sentiment that is within me. To be honest, I came here just to have a life. I think most of us here do. But then life in the Academy changes the person and for most of us, it has defined the kind of people we are and hope to become.

Earlier today, I asked two of my underclass to go to my room and discuss something that I have observed in the way they are doing their duties. It was not some violent discussion but it was more of a scolding. I was telling them that what we are doing here is more than just getting through each day to graduate but we are doing something that is beyond graduation, in fact beyond than our dreams. I told them that we are establishing a foundation that maybe this country can make use of when the time comes.

I am saying this in the light of the recent deaths of our graduates in a war that not so many of our country men agree. I am saying this because I know parents will dissuade their children from taking the PMA Entrance Exam because they are afraid that some general will send them to a war-torn area to die when they graduate. I have talked to people who actually are afraid of what will happen once I graduate in seven months time. I, myself, am afraid to the future that lies ahead of me with many of my upperclassmen making the ultimate sacrifice, wondering if I, too, am prepared to do the same.

I will not lie to people and say that the death is not as real as how it is portrayed in the media. I will not be a hypocrite that all of the fears that most people have about the war that is happening down south is just a stage and will pass in due time. What I will say is that like all of those people who are afraid of sending their children to become cadets, I too am afraid. Like those students who now do not want to go through with their wanting to become cadets because of graduates dying in quick succession, I, too am afraid of dying. But the truth of the matter is we are all afraid everyday of our lives. We are afraid that when we sleep tonight we may not wake up tomorrow morning and see the light of day. We are afraid that our loved ones, although within our reach may meet some crazy accident that will make us lose them. The truth is fear is what makes us humans yet it is not the thing that defines us. To allow it to define us is not being human.

I was watching Brothers and Sisters earlier and related so much to the anguish of the characters who was so afraid of their youngest going to Iraq to join the war. The truth is it was the closest portrayal of how it is with most of my family and the family of the other cadets here. On the day that we learned about the death of our upperclassmen, we huddled up in silence both afraid and sad. But despite that, I look forward to the day when I graduate and join them out there, not because I also want to die, but because by understanding the fear that I have, I learned that there are more reasons to be proud of what I do. I learned that there are more reasons to stop all those violence because the fear has to stop and the job fell on my lap.

I guess, I am not the best person to really entice people to take the PMA exam on Sunday. I am no good at trying to glamorize things especially in the light of what is happening to our country. But my call is not just to take that exam but rather it is not to allow fear to define the kind of person that we are, or rather the kind of people that we are. I am afraid but I will not allow it to define me.

The PMA Entrance exam will be held on the 26th of August in all major cities across the country.