Let’s Start From The End

March 26 - Lit Finals.

The room was small, hot and full unlike the coolest classroom in CTC where we held (most) of our English and Lit classes during the second semester. The test was hard and it blew my brains into smithereens. Some blockmates finished early, REALLY early. Some of them were stuck staring blankly on the test questionnaire and trying to figure how to answer question number 3. Two hours went by so fast and suddenly I realized that the room is almost half-empty. Some of my blockmates  were no longer there. No goodbyes, no goodlucks no “see you around’s.” Kinda sad if you think about it. Hey! Two sems together is not something to be neglected. It’s actually pretty big considering that those two sems were the first two sems of college life. So R49 was no more without proper “acknowledgements.” But based on the two sems that I was part of R49, I realized that that is how we roll! (How we rolled)

R49 is a weird class (weird in a cool way). Each person in the class never really knew everyone in the class, but the class was always united when it came to cramming, 5-minute preparations for a 15-minute presentation, hating that one teacher who never taught anything, laughing at each other’s kasabawan and bla bla bla. The class was unique: from having and not having Jun as part of the class to being transferred to a different classroom and being assigned back the old and cold classroom, everyday was different in R49.

I also met friends here (yehey for me!)! I remembered how shy I was when I first asked Sam for a piece of paper when we had our  first Lit 13 quiz or how hesitant I was to laugh at Nicko’s jokes during the first sem or how I always thought that Christine would kick my ass if I bumped her chair and many more scenarios. Who would have thought that I would be comfortable enough to show my true self (the loud-mouth, super hyper, brutal me) to them? Who would have thought that I would tease Christine and Sam to their own respective love interests? HMMMM.

No farewells after two sems? Hmmm.. Who said this is goodbye anyway? We’ll be seeing each other still. And I hope that we would be able to use the things we learned (En11 - still waiting, Lit 13- Short Story Analysis, En12- WRITING! Lit 14 - Poetry Appreciation).

See you around

*Ma’m! Akala ko na post ko na ‘to, saved as draft lang pala :|. Nung March 29 ko pa po ’to pinost (sana lumubas ung date) Wah… sayang bonus.. oh well

Death

Death is never a happy thing,  But it’s natural and inevitable for all living things. As a Catholic, I believe that in dying, the soul will either go to heaven, purgatory or hell. It’s the end of our borrowed life, the end of earthly pain and sufferings and the start of the promise of God: eternal life. It sounds great right? Anyone who went through the experience of losing a loved one  would disagree.

If you think about it, funerals are held not for the deceased loved one but for the living who lost their loved one. It’s their way of moving on or accepting the death of their loved one. The funeral has no use whatsoever for the dead (because praying for the dead could be done anywhere).  Though a funeral (in a sick way) could be seen as some sort of a party (food, gambling, drinking, more food, sleepover etc.), going through it (specially being the “host” of the funeral) is one experience that I would like to avoid.

My first experience of losing a loved one happened when I was just an innocent 7 year old boy -  it was my big brother. There was a typhoon then and our house was flooded by floodwater. We had a machine to pump out the water out of the house. It was a freak accident and it happened so fast. Before sleeping, I remember saying goodnight to kuya and when I woke up, my mom was crying beside me. She said kuya fell while trying to operate the machine and hit his head on the table. I remember arriving at the hospital hours later and there I saw the body of my brother: pale, lifeless and it had cotton balls stuck on his nose to stop the blood from flowing out. When we arrived at the funeral home, I remembered sleeping while waiting for the coffin with my kuya’s body. And when it finally arrived, that was only the time that I started crying. I would never forget that moment: my father, my sister, my mother and I standing beside the coffin, looking at my kuya’s body and crying. That experience is a blur to me because I was still a kid. And everytime people would recall the story of my brother’s death, they would say that one moment I was crying so hard and then after a few minutes, I was playing and laughing. A kid is a kid afterall.

Life went on its course without my brother. Then when I was in second year high-school, my grandfather died. This time, it was different from my brother’s death. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and it was too late to cure him. So we had time to prepare ourselves before he passed away. The first thing I noticed during my grandfather’s wake is that the atmosphere is lighter compared to my brother’s wake. Maybe because my grandfather’s death is not sudden but still, we were extremely sad. It was the second time on less than eight years that a beloved family member died.

Last Thursday after my chemistry class, I received a text message from my cousin saying that our tita just died. This instantly brought tears to my eyes and I instantly called my cousin and I even asked him if he was joking. Of course he was not joking because death is no laughing matter. After a few minutes, I rushed to the funeral home (the same funeral home where my brother and my grandfather’s wake were held) to find my cousin staring blankly at the wall; still shocked on what happened to his mother. We got the same funeral chapel where my grandfather’s wake was held and it was like a replay of all the sad things that happened to our family barely 4 years ago. It was the third time in less than 11 years that a beloved family member died.

Being just 17 years old and having experienced three deaths of a family member, I realized some things. For one, kids do not really understand death or they can not comprehend the full  meaning of death. When I came to the wake yesterday, I found my nephews and nieces running and playing around the funeral chapel like nothing bad happened. When I had the chance to speak with one of my nieces about the death (of her grandmother), her voice didn’t have a hint of sadness and even exclaimed that my tita (her grandmother) was old. Another instance was when my other nephew (about four years old) looked inside the coffin to see his grandmother, he muttered the word “mama” like he used to call her when she was still alive. Was I really like this when my brother died? Innocent to all what’s happening?  Uncaring even? But then again, you can not stop a child from being a child.                          

Another thing I realized must be the saddest thing I’ve realized about death; that everyone will go through the pain of losing a loved one. And that the more people you love, the more times that you are going to feel the pain of losing a loved one. The more you love a person, the more painful it is gonna feel when you lose him. It’s sad, unclear and a little unfair but it is life and life is everything but clear.

The word “death”  has many negative connotations. But we must remember that death is inevitable and it is part of life (rather the end of life). It’s never fun for the living loved ones left but it is a mystery for the one that experienced death. Death is a mystery and it’s very unclear. One moment, a person may be healthy and another, death might just come knocking on his door.

I is not an idiots…

Before going to the Ateneo, I studied in an exclusive school for boys. And in a world full of teenage boys, teasing and name callings are normal. In fact, I consider myself good at name callings and senseless bashing. I come up with unique, funny, witty insults and insults thrown at me seem to have no effect. Others can call me fat, smelly, Mr. Clean, Uncle Fester, raging bull but there is one word that I never want to be associated with, and that is the word “BOBO.”

The Alpha and The Omega

There are many gods, many powerful beings, many names, many religions but I believe in God. The God that created everything in seven days, the God in three divine persons, the God that gave us the commandment of love and the God that sent his only son to save mankind more than 2000 years ago.

Rex the King

*Badung dun, babadung dung* The sound of the motor the tricycle is part of his everyday life. This sound is so precious to him because it is his way of living. For four years, he has been one of the drivers of the ultimate Atenean ride. This is his only way to provide for his family. But life wasn’t always like that.

He was born on 1971 when everyone was in the cemetery remembering all soul’s day. He is a native of the province Roxas, Capiz and one of the ten children of Mr. and Mrs. Digones. He loved baseball when he was in high-school and he was even part of the varsity team. Sadly, he only got to finish high-school because college education was too pricey for their family. He made his living as a pig butcher before deciding to face the challenges in living in Manila.