Wednesday, August 08, 2007



I am at the peak of wanting to blog for no particular reason at all. Most likely, it could be somehow blamed from inspiration driven by reading Young Blood 3-- which I admit, is what preoccupies my free time lately. Yes dearies, blame it to the magnificently-written essays of which you cannot actually believe that behind them are the Filipino youth trying to mirror their experiences and others' experiences as well. Simply unbelievable. Truth be told, the fact that Filipino youth can be really good writers never dawned on me and now that I am faced with a written record as proof, I cannot brace the mere fact that we can be good writers too. Likewise, I am thankful to them because they inspire and open doors to opportunities which lay dormant for quite a while. Perhaps, the fear of being rejected or not-well-liked holds us back from our true desires but it is exemplified in the following published essays that these simple fears should not prevent us from chasing our ultimate dreams. The challenge deeply lies on whether you will let yourself be swallowed up as a whole and allow fears to crush your dreams into pieces or you will push yourself to the limit and try to squeeze in that little whole at the end of the tunnel which is labeled, "freedom." Which to choose, it depends on you. Weaknesses, fears and backfired plans should not hinder you nor put an end to your ability to being successful in life.

The highlight of my day is not really the exclusive-for-year-two Confession that took place in the morning but yet I want to make it so.

Confession is a fundamental part of Catholics' life but I am not a very responsible and religious catholic member and so I seldom have the chance to "come clean" and only do it when school provides or supports such. As expected, I am also quite unfamiliar with the process by how things should go (i.e. what's the first sentence you utter, what do you say next, when does the priest start talking, etc.). In other words, I hardly know a thing about Confession (only that it is something that you do to cleanse or free yourself from the bondage of sin). Basically, I am an irresponsible Catholic citizen and this is a big, big thing considering the fact that I come from a Catholic school-- run by no one else but nuns.

Amazingly, when I had my turn in confession I was comfortably walking towards the vacant chair facing some foreign-looking with British-Australian accent priest (of course, this I did not recognize yet until he finally spoke) with not even an ounce of nervousness. When I started talking, asking for forgiveness and opening up my suitcase of endless sins-- of which I selected only a handful because I basically forgot them-- that was when I felt a bit lost and confused. I did not know what gesture to do to signal the priest that I was done on narrating my part. Fortunately, I remebered the line which I had to say first, "For these and all the sins which I cannot now remember..." From there, the foreign-looking bearded "quite" old minister took on his part. He advised me to: 1)Try to see the positive/good things in myself and others; and 2)Thank the Lord for the blessings, protection, talents/abilities, etc. which both serve as my penance too. Basically, this mindset brought me to thinking that he might be some sort of fortune-teller-slash-psycho-slash-stalker because his penance (for me) were things which actually hit the spot. It hit the mark!!!-- without me expecting it.

Frankly, I am not an optimistic person (and I am surprised Father noticed it for I do not know how he came to recognize that I was so) and hardly, hardly will I have ample amount of faith in myself-- I am mostly veered toward putting myself down which, in all cases, is a bad, terrible, tragic thing. I realized that everytime I put myself down, I withdraw huge amounts from my self-confidence account and at the same time, draw myself to expensive debts which would take years to make up for. It was not a good strategic plan because it is good things and bad things in a ratio of 1:2 and the gap in between just gets bigger and bigger by the minute. Useless, one can say.

On the contrary, I am a hard-to-please student specially when it comes to my own set of grades. I set myself to tremendously high standards which I cannot achieve or can achieve only if I stupidly sacrifice one whole schoolnight of sleep (to me, it is equivalent to 6 hours at most) which, obviously, I will not do. Sometimes, I push myself too hard and expect too much in return and once I find out that the result is inferior to what I had expected I pout and feel awful as if the end of the world is near. Then, this is followed by a long list of, "If only I had........I could have done better."

As you may have noticed "contentment" is nowhere in my vocabulary. But I wish to incorporate it soon. I do not want myself to grow up as some bratty, materialistic girl who gets everything she WANTS in life nor do I want to be someone who feels so unsatisfied with what she gets or what she has. I just want myself to learn to live simply and to learn to accept whatever comes my way. Likewise, I want to learn how to juggle experiences alongside trials. Yes, simple dreams for a young lady like me but I am challenged to exemplify my contentment to all facets in life. Afterall, I have my basic necessities: Food, Clothing, Good Education, Loving Family, Understanding Friends, Forgiving God.... What more can I ask for? At the moment, perhaps a little more self-love.