Dear John,

This is a simple letter of appreciation for two reasons.

First, thank you for reminding me the source and anchor of my EVERYTHING.

You may not know it, as I do not manifest it all the time but I really appreciate the fact that you are so patient with me. And that you take care of me so much more than I can ask for.

The cause of this letter is your simple gesture of cheering me up during my last semi-final examination. You know, I am not used to receiving affectionate messages or calls, not even the infamous “you can do it”. For long, I get passed my storms with some prayer of grace and it is always more than enough. John, you know well that it is hard for me to share my problem to anyone. I prefer telling people things that would make them happen than concern them with some trivial problems of mine. Sometimes, I would like to believe it is because I want to solve them on my own but the reality is that I am just too scared that people might see the weakness I am trying to hide. I always see to it that there is a well-built barrier between my struggles and the happy-go-lucky attitude I painted myself. So, this act of yours is actually very foreign to me. They are so new that I consider them jewels. Those kinds of acts may come ordinary to you as it could be the proper gesture and care of a partner whose other-half is facing problem, I am really not sure but to me, those are more than simple text messages. They reminded me of how great God is that he made sure to put me in a place where people would remind me of his greatness. And you are one of those people.

I must admit, so many are the times that I have forgotten to tell myself I can do it. Sometimes, negativity strikes pretty hard, right on the stomach that I deprived myself of affirmation, all because I have fallen into the disgrace of self-doubt. When challenges are mixed with anxiety, I get tempted and eventually, the pit of forgetting the Anchor of my strength comes in to me. One of those unfortunate moments was during my last exam. I cannot understand an ounce of what I was reading. My mind refused to take what it should be taking. I was hopeless and nearing downfall. Doubts came crushing and a single push would have send me crying in despair but then your constant messages reminded me of the source of my strength and the anchor of my confidence. You have no idea how much your act meant to me. John, they may be foreign but I have the intention of keeping my jewels until eternity.

Second, thank you for the grip of assurance. I have no idea that a simple cheer could give you more than the feeling of being taken cared-of. It was like an assurance that I could and would always have something that anxiety could never take away. Not once that you are unmindful of me. At all times you are very considerate and caring. You never compete with time but rather patiently wait for you turn. I may not have uttered how grateful I am to you but please know that I really am. You never were a priority, and when something would come up my first choice tends to be cancelling you out. And for so many times I thought you will give up. Waiting is not easy, people get tired, anxious and impatient. The next thing you know, they are gone. But you have proven me wrong. When I thought you have left, you stayed. You are patiently waiting, making sure that when I call you out, I would not call twice. You are always ready, even when waiting means a cup of coffee too. So, Babe, thank you.

 

With Love,

Danica.

To the girls who have been told to dress up

Girls, you are expected to dress and to be always presentable. Your lady side should always be manifested. It should not be, in any way, set aside. In all times girls has to be in their best. Not being such is an act the society has labelled as a sin. And yes, I am a sinner. I have been told to act like one. I have always been criticized for not being feminine, for not being just refined.

There are moments that I wish I am more feminine and refine –more Maria Clara. But my system will not allow it.  No, it is more of I did not allow it. Dressing and acting like a lady is something I am not in accordance with. I guess I was made for jeans never for dress; sneakers not heels. People said dress and its stuffs are made for girls and I agree they are correct. So, I tried wearing but it did not feel right. Every time I tried dressing up

it never felt right.

But, life is a bitch and so I am. I may not be the feminine one but I am too, a girl. So, I will be. I paired jeans with stilettos. And dress with sneakers. They said I am breaking the rules.

I said, NO, I am bending it towards my favor.

I will be a knight when I want to and a queen when necessary. Other days, I will be me.

No, I will never dress up for a man. My feminine, soft and gentle side are for children or parents but never for society who tells you to be feminine because that would make you a damsel in distress or a princess, one that would make a prince charming run to your rescue. No, I refuse to. My jeans and stilettos are my beings. Dress and sneakers are my soul. I may not have the stand and the grace of a beauty queen but I’m a girl. And no, you do not tell me to be feminine because I already am, only when nature calls for it.

Because it is peculiar

Love is so peculiar. It is the strangest thing one could ever have, knowingly or unknowingly. Its relativity transgresses every theory and law science has ever given. Love is defined as an involuntary act or feeling of care and appreciation towards others. Yet, people say love can be learned, would it not be voluntary, an act chosen by a person. Love makes a man merry and drives him mad, at the same time.

Love to me is giving away what I have, including pride if it means happiness of the person in the other side. But love for her is never letting go, because holding on is the only thing that she can do. Love to him is fighting every chance even if it means losing her at the end; insisting that it should be him because he loves her more than enough. While others say love is seeing you happy even if it means being apart from me. Love is giving everything without consideration. Love is choosing to trust even if it was broken a hundredfold. Love to me is not love to him. How could love be love the same for me but so strangely different for you?

Love is so absurd. It is silly in all times. Love makes you fight but when she cries, it makes you admit repentance. Love gives courage so much, it could win a war. Yet the same love makes a commander of glory and pride toss the white flag. And remember that it was love that made Caesar lower his scepter.  One would take a beating from anyone just to protect the smile of the person dearest to him. If the bargain is her happiness would you not care shredding your own life?

Love makes people happy and blissful and also sad and mad. Love creates emotions innate and personal to one another. It does not recapitulate. It is not the same to everyone but its utterance is clear to mankind; one will know if the heart has loved; it is a language spoken transcending universe, as if the Babylonian’s Tower was never created.

Love would make you give everything you have –your heart, mind and soul; your time, your life. Not because love said so but because you would gladly do so. It would take away every piece of you, from the early good morning to late night smiley.  Love would one way frustrate, discourage and in times it would enraged you. And when it walks away all that is left is nothing more than a machine, who wakes up because the eyes open, eats because the stomach needs something to digest, speaks because someone ask. When love leaves, you exist but do not live.

Love took with her the fragments of your very being those pieces that once made you whole. You are left, void of your existence and had lost purpose. Each day you ask have you been enough, enough to make love stay. And every day you are slap with reality that the love that once made you bliss is causing you tears. The world has known of your being but no compliment would suffice the longing of a heart. You have crumbled and found yourself picking up the pieces of what is left of you.

But love is unexpected. It came whooshing, like a ball passed three seconds before game over. But love was unknown to you. It was not a shade of grey nor light blue.  You did not even recognized love when a five year old boy stumbled throwing his ice cream to you and girl came running behind him saying, “I’m sorry my nephew did not mean it.” Of course, how would you know when the core of your being was shut down? When the very piece that holds true to reality was taken and you have turned to a mess. Of course you would not recognized love, not yet, because after all,

love is love and it is so peculiar.

 

intentionally stayed a teacher

I become a teacher by accident. It was never my intention to be one, at least not yet. It was my childhood dream though and I promise to die as one. But that time, I had plans, goals to make. Becoming a teacher was not one of them. Well, fate plays its own game and  it has rules on its own. Now, I am a teacher.

Teaching in a university is not easy especially when you never had any teaching unit. Imposing authority to your students is more of a tug of war than playing role play. How would it sounds if I say that my students are far more older than me, their teacher. As I look back, its been two years  since I started, thank God, the game of respect the teacher because she is the teacher is still a good ball. I never thought I will get this far. Now I am thinking how did I manage to make my way far older students obey my yes and no.

The first class I had was Geography. One month later, it was taken away from me and given to another because I have to handle another class. That was my first heartbreak. Why would they give me something they will just take back in the end. But I was able to let go. I have moved one. I still remember them.

My class in Life and Works of Rizal started as a make-up session. A group of students were very busy perfecting  there eyebrows and eye shadows. I walked in, they did not notice. Until one of them bravely asked “Is her eyebrows good?” while pointing her classmate. I said yes. Never it occurred to them I was their instructor. They were pretty shocked, of course, I was not. I believe that was expected.

I got a class of 62 students. How did I manage to make sure they will never fall asleep. Or get bored, no, it was more of how to make sure they are still listening. Authority over 62 students is not easy. I think God has provided me grace of dominion because I only have to asked them once to get their attention. Thank you Lord.

My class starts 8:00 in the morning, I am struggle fighting gravity every time a meeting is set in 10:00 in the morning. But what will I do when your students send a message telling they are waiting for you.

When I was a student I sleep during classes. Now my students are doing the same. So, this is how my teachers have felt. Ma’am, Sir I am sorry. One time I asked why he was sleepy, he told me he was working night shift in a fast food chain. I discovered I had a lot of working students. I only asked them one thing, never give up education. Now, the semester is about to end. My friends and I decided to have dinner in a fast food. After the cashier took our order he said, “Hi ma’am, I am your student. And no, I am not giving up school.” It made me proud, not because I am his teacher but because he is my student and he is not giving up.

“Ma’am, may I go home, my father died.” She broke down on my shoulders. I was a good in comforting people, at least my friends say so, but I never comforted any student, my student, before. I had no words, I only had my arms extended to her.

“Class, sometimes the only thing we want the most, is the one thing we would never have.” My students agreed. One of them cried. He just broke up with his girlfriend the other night. “If it was your father in the situation, would you let him go, when he already said so?”, I asked. My student cried, she lost her father to cancer a week before. A boy in the corner never said anything. The following morning he told me, he never had one.

“Hi ma’am! I am graduating next week. Thank you.” No, kids, thank you.

These are just few of the stories I have heard from my students. Things I will never know if I never accidentally became a teacher.

 

 

 

The desire to do things right

The desire to do what is right remains a desire when the circumstances do not favor such.

This is what I have today. It is ones pride to have taken a stand to do what is right but when doing so is an option not listed in the choices, people begun to tremble. People starts to worry and then the desire to do what is right fades away like a memory of the yesterdays.

It is very easy to say that we should always do the right thing. That there is no other option than doing what is correct. I submit I do this all the time. Telling myself to always choose what is right and never give in to the idea of what is wrong. Yet, I have not than anything that would merit me rightful. Every now and then, the desire to always do the right thing foregoes. The temptation to fall into darkness carves in.

No, the desire to do what is right relinquishes not because the idea of what is easier than doing what is right presents itself. Temptations are always there. It will showcase itself during the times that you are in time for judgement. It is always between something that is righteous and something that is easier.

Yes, I know many of us desire to do what is right but isn’t that what is right seems to be the most difficult thing to do. A pile of mistakes over lies and pretentions every after such acts you would wish you have done what is truthful and showed what is real. But when given the opportunity to do what is right you begin to tremble and doubt if doing it and freeing yourself from the chain of lies would do you good. We become too afraid to risk the after of what we have longed and desire. We become too afraid to do what is right.

And yes my friend, the plea of a heart that wants to do the right thing vanishes like the mist when the sun rises. We are not strong to hold on to the right thing. The thought of it scares us. What if he will never believe me again? My mother will never trust me the same! If he will know the truth I am doomed. These thoughts will linger to us father than where the boundary ends. It will hunt us enough to let go of the truth and lie instead. Because, cliché may sounds the lie we once created becomes the very reality of our lives.

Doing the right thing vanishes because we let it so. You see, everything is under the category of choosing. Between left and right, pink and blue, hot and cold –wrong or right. It is us who will make the decision. It is not the circumstances that will mandate us to choose one from the other. Nor it is the maker of our fate. It is us who will carve our life in the stones of our journey. We only have to choose. This, of course is easier said than done. So is the thought of making your life better by starting to do what is right than lie to make things right. But we cannot remain to be hypocrites. A lifetime is not judge by how many times you thought of giving up lies and pretensions, life is decided by taking a stand and choosing to take command in your desire to do and make things right.

People lie because they want to protect something but we will never want somebody lying to us just to protect us. White lies will never hurt yet are they not the try-outs for something darker? No matter how one will desire to make things right if he will not act on it the desire will just be a desire.

Would you take a stand?

she Is home

“When I don’t know what to do because I am so stressed out and I could no longer think properly and no one was around, you were there.”  –Queenie Chariz

He was standing firm just like the first time she laid eyes on him. A man, she thought. Her type, of course! But no, she has her own goals. That was a wild dream. He was a dream. But fate will always be fate. And it has its own rules too!

He was holding him closely. “I’m fine” she whispered, “you’re here, I’ll be well”. He touched her hands they were trembling so he held it tighter. Assurance. He never failed.
He has become her reality. She remembers the very first time he looked at her. She caught him but she ignored it. So fate made its way. She looked back. He smiled. She did the same.

It was him all along, she thought.

She got plans, aims not meant to be detoured. She was skeptical. She was afraid he will give up. She was afraid of breaking her heart. But it was him who made her try better and do more. It has him who made her dream bigger. And when she could no longer understand it was him who held her hand and told her,

“We will do it together.”

He was the one who made her realized that love is choosing to be happy regardless of any circumstances. That love knows how to wait and it waits patiently. That love is not limited to be confined in the rules of one but not of the other. It was him who made her believe that love is magic not a trick. It is incapable of being explained and it needs no enlightenment. It only has to happen once for the person to have faith.
This time she made a deal, it was all in. She had everything she got placed in a plate ready to be taken in. No more hesitation. She was prepared to fall in to the arms of the only man she will call home.

“I came here alone, away from home then I met her . . . suddenly there was home.” –Emil Jay

He looked straight to her eyes, she was home.
He stood firmly like a soldier on duty not because people were expecting him to be nor he was trying to impress any lady. He was still because her queen was standing beside him with her arms around his shoulder as she leaned on him. But, unlike any soldier his eyes were fixed not towards the lateral but to his queen searching for her eyes, observing her every move afraid if she was well. He looked at her, mesmerize with the beauty of the woman who captured his heart. The only woman who turned his fantasies into reality.

He remembered well, it was him who laid eyes first but it was fate that made her looked at him. She was strong, too strong but his desires were stronger. He was drawn to her like never been to another.

She made him realized that love is not about food but rather it was how it was cooked. That love is not all the time a one-hour conversation, sometimes simple HI’s and hello’s are enough because he understood that life is not the same as his ideals. That when the stroke of fate played he became very willing to give up all those should be or ought to be just to have her as his reality.

He wrapped his arms around her body. This time he was the one who leaned towards her. Her warmth, her smell, her smile all those things gave him so much comfort and warm. He is not letting her go, never.

Then she noticed. She caught him looking at her. So, she touched his face and whispered

“I love you.”

HEEDLESS

I saw him.
He laid eyes on me. Smiled.
I did too.
I walk towards him. Nearing, I can hear his heartbeat.
Mine too.

I stop right in front of the table next to where he was.
Hey! I told my friends. Small conversations happened.
I was mindful of his presence. And constantly stealing glances of him.

He was taking no care. I was instantly erased from his world.
Hell! What was the smile for?
Fool, I was. He smiled to everyone!
I was nothing. He was oblivious of me.

Or I thought he was.

A friend asked for my attention
I gave him mine. “Can I have your phone number?”

His spoon dropped. I saw his reaction.
He heard the asking.
I thought he was heedless of me.
Was he? Maybe.

On the matter of pain and love

Love and pain are distinct and independent from each other. Love is love as much as pain is pain. They possess different feelings, cohabit different gestures and they manifest different reasons.

When you love, you do things without reservations. You give everything of what you have –time, happiness, success –the person becomes your inspiration; sometimes that person transgress your very mind and soul. When everything feels wrong it remains the only thing that is right. Fool it may seems but admit it, the memories you have with love make you smile, alone or not. Love will remain the only positive feeling in the world.

Was there pain when you were together with the person who means everything to you? When you were doing the only thing that makes you happy? When you laughed your heart out? Were you hurt? Was there loneliness? Did you feel sad? I would suggest you were not. All those time you are just happy. You are full of love, no pain.

But we are only human. We are not perfect and this is not heaven. You begin to expect from your friends, family, from yourself but they were not, including yourself, able to meet all these expectations. Now you are disappointed and very frustrated. How could all your expectations go to waste? Your friends forget your birthday when you were together all day long. Your father was not able to go to your graduation after all the reminders you sent him. Just like when he told you his going to your basketball match but he did not show up. When you thought he is the one but he thought differently. You become bitter and hatred found your heart. It stayed there, slowly it engulf everything. Hatred crushed your heart. Now, you are in pain. Was there love? When you cried? When no one was there for you? When you were lonely and everything was dark? Again, I would suggest there was none, only frustrations, disappointments, bitterness and sadness. Now you are in pain.

However, I am not blind not to see that it was only after you have loved so much that pain entered your life. It was only after being hurt too much that you have realized it was indeed true love. These two may have different reasons for existence such that they manifest different feelings and reactions but they have come from the same subject and source of life –the person to who love or pain is directed to.

You may love so much that it would be impossible for pain to stay. Yet, it is also very possible that you have felt so much pain that your heart becomes numb and love becomes impossible. You see, people can love while hurting and breaking inside as much as you can be very angry and hurt and in so much pain yet you can still love. Humans are very complicated. We do not want to be hurt. At all times we try to avoid pain. But by doing so would it not be the same as avoiding love and happiness? Is it not the same with if you do not want to be hurt, do not love. How is that even possible? It is just and natural for people to fall in love – to places, things, and people- to almost everything.

Love or pain may be felt without the other. But these two will always be the checklist of the existence and reality of each other.

On the note that students should obey authority

Today, I am trying to finish my homework. It is a case digest assignment. There are nineteen cases to be digested and I am now on number 11. However, this post is not about my homework. This is about obeying authority.

Being at law school is a choice every law student made. It was never something that someone imposed to them. The moment you made the decision that you are going to enter the gate of hell; it is presumptuous to say that you are ready to take all kinds of flares that its flames have -you must have come prepared.

One of those flares is nothing more than obeying the authority of the one who holds such in the premises of academe -the teachers. A student should obey his teacher. This is elementary. When the teacher requires something,the student is expected to comply with it. If such requirement is so much for the student, his first response should be on “what is the purpose of this requirement?” The student should inquire on the very essence and reason why the teacher has given such homework. He should not risk an argument which will hold his virtue without existence.

The authority of the teacher over his students, if not absolute should at all time be uphold. It is not for the student to question nor for a student to curse.

This is very much like the society right now. People do not and will not obey authority. Neither that of heads of the family nor the head of the State and his government. People only want to do what are pleasing to them. Those that are more convenient and easy. And when they are given more -which are very necessary they will complain. We do not want to be bothered by something that should bother us. We hate anything that would require our obedience. And yet, whose choice is it to be under anybody’s authority?

When people cannot obey simple authority, like those of the teacher, what a chaotic world would this be?

The importance of obeying authority lies on the potential of a person to harness respect even when the situation calls for disagreements. Imagine kids becoming adults who have been trained well when to obey and , as I have said, in the purview that teachers may cross the line of the extent of their authorities, when to suggest another academic remedy. Would it not be a well-made society?

ONE DAY GET AWAY!

This adventure is what you perfectly call huling-hirit as the first class of the semester begins the next day. Just like any other student, I too would want to make one more blast before entering the campus. So, what we had was memory banking with the sea and the falls.

Originally, it was only a get-away to the magnificent and alluring Badian white sand beach but luck was quite late because the sea was not in a high tide, it was around 10:00 in the morning when we arrived, the same time when I first met this paradise well I guess luck comes once. Since another fantastic place was waiting to be visited around the area we decided to have that 10-minute ride going there.

And so we have met Kawasan Falls. See that deep-blue enthralling water. And mind you, the first dip of my toe sends shivers to my whole body. It was very cold that it took all the hotness my mind possessed.

The falls is actually not that huge that it would engulf you any minute yet it is enough to send wonders to your being. With the hotness of Metro Cebu I know I will be looking for this. Bet not all coldness are negative. Kawasan falls, I’ll be back!

After those freezing moments we head back to where we should have been this beach!

That white sand, blue waters and the sea-breeze are love triangle that could go one for life! And this beautiful place, as I would want to believe is still unspoiled. I mean the place is perfect for a get-away where no too many people had yet crowded. It is like taking a vacation in your own beach paradise!

One tip though, morning high tides are the best of this beach. Next time it is going to be sunset meets sunrise.