brave

I need a reason to be here. I need to know why I haven’t called home after all this time just to say I need to get out of this messed-up city. I need to know why I still haven’t broken down into tears after looking out the window of this kind of reality. Why did I choose this path full of turns and detours and tunnels with missing lights? It always feels like going through uncertainties. Tell me one good reason why I’m making this risk.

My truth flares inside of me. This room I’m in is like my safety shell. The truth is it scares me every time I break out of it. It scares me that every time I do, I wouldn’t find a way back. That every time I do, I’d think, sit still, stare, disappointed for more reasons. I’m even scared of people and everything else.

I must be brave. Because for some reason, even if it scares me, I still manage to step out of my door and watch what happens next. All my doubts and negative thoughts tend to disappear as walk away from my safety. The odd feeling in my stomach remains but as I continue trekking a new path, it fades away. For some reason, the feeling of going through something is better than moping in a silent room. For some reason, it feels a whole lot better learning how to survive out in the dark.

here i am being taught how to be independent.

This scares me a lot. Most of the time, I’m alone, thinking again, what step I’d do next. I’ve had this thoughts ever since I moved in a big city. Soon I’m going to be physically alone feeling more gloomier than I was waiting and searching for my fate.

uncovering reality

2 weeks ago, I moved in a big city. It greeted me with it’s tall buildings, strange heat from the sun, honking cars and buses, and messed up traffic. Soon I realized how hard and expensive it is to move from one place to another. Soon I realized how it costs to live.

I’ve walked on foot bridges so many times, just now I’ve had the odd creepy feeling while walking on it whenever I look down the passing cars under it. I’ve experienced riding the the train packed with people, pushing myself in so I could get home sooner. I’ve walked and stood more than I used too giving me a fair share of blisters for my feet. I’ve got to give the sun more credit this time for always being there to bring out more sweat in everyone.

Everything might be a challenge here. Because later on I start to wonder how people live in this kind of noisy crowded place. Everything seems so fast, so alive, you need to keep up. Every single day, waking up to the same routine of bumpy buses, speedy jeeps and smoke.

Today, I stared at traveling windows again. I’ve taken pleasure in watching where a train goes more often. This time, I gazed at the towering buildings lit up for the night. It was getting dark and I wish I was back home, where I need not go too far. On the last train stop, finally, I went off, and started on another walk along the semi-dark pavement. I watched the line of buses waiting on its passengers and looked beyond where the other buses were going. For a moment as i walked on another foot bridge, I watched another amazing view as all the vehicles trailed away to making a united river of tail lights. Then I switched back to reality to go after the next two rides home.

There must be a reason to be here. Why everything seems not to take a break even for fresh air. Why everywhere I go, there’s a new route somewhere else to see. Why every turn, there’s a new place too get lost to, a new jeepney ride to remember. Why people continue on, moving, living…

• don’t hurry up. there will be a time when success becomes yours.
• but don’t go too slow. be assertive.
• don’t get eaten by your negative feelings. they’re just feelings!
• if you kept getting bothered by your thoughts, do something about it.
• waiting sucks, but sometimes it might be worth it.
• always have faith especially in yourself
• continue learning and keep going

there’s this moment when you thought you’ve met reality face to face, but the truth is, you haven’t even scratched it yet.
-learned thoughts

side note: plan for the worst. hope for the best.

step four: meet people and meet reality.

unplanned step three: survive the detours.

step two: make a slightly difficult non-random plan to reach The Goal.

very difficult indeed. how do you make a plan in the first place. i think knowing is the right answer. it's a good choice to seek options, know your resources, figure out what you can do with them. make a non-random plan. why? i can't think of exact words for it. plans can be changed most of the time. things change. so sometimes, we randomly make decisions out of our plans. i needed to say that it's non-random because, making a decision out of our plans must still be thought through, of course. the important thing is keeping your goal intact.

step one: make a goal.

it's time to figure something out. what do you want. what is your dream? what do you want to achieve. making a goal sounds easy, but it really isn't. i've thought of a goal. but i don't know if it really is a goal because it's too broad. my goal is to be happy. yeah. not exactly a goal. one can be happy anytime he/she chooses to be. so the ultimate goal is really hard to figure. but it will come out in the long run. my goal is hard to define though because it has branches on it like a tree.

WHAT DA.

i didn't get lost. i got burned by the sun. i met people. i learned something new.

i'm going on an adventure today.

there’s a saying that mentions about finding new land means losing sight of the shore
then there’s another that says, sometimes you need to get lost in the forest to learn find new places
i hope i still don’t get lost though, but to learn and find new places would be a great escape.
goodluck.

spilled pensieve

waves roared at the piece of rock where he stood.
from all edges, it crashed and wanted to cave in to the tiny land where he stood.
and as if the sea was frustrated with not enough power to push him off, it made its waves bigger and stronger.
he felt all the anger now, and started fighting not to be knocked off with the icy water trying to grasp his feet.
it went on like forever, like nothing would save him as he felt the wind stabs hard on his skin
but then out of nothing, he saw a great bird swoop him on its back before the tiny bit of rock he once stood got devoured by the raging sea

Pseudo-revenge

During my review days, I was doing pretty well on practice exams, actually acing it in unexpected times. It wasn’t what I used to do way back in college. So when my review mates asked me one day how I’m doing it, I just blurted out that i wanted revenge.

I’m an invisible college student. Nowhere near the lime light and grateful not at the bottom. I chose to be an average-off-the-radar kind from the moment I realized how college grades were run.

I don’t detest college. Going through it was actually a huge challenge with all tests of reality blaring at your face and changes starts to happen from where you stand. I get to learn and do new things and meet different kinds of people. These were good times. :)

The downside of it all is the part where I had to break my head in half just to memorize medicines, anatomical parts and medical jargons just to enumerate for the next day’s quiz. After which, all these terms I somehow crammed in my head would just slip away from my brain leaving me only memorable ones such as the gastrocnemius, enoxaparin, and laminectomy. I’ve “accepted” this kind of learning and moved with it from my first semester to the last.

I’d enjoy going through exams that allows me to analyze what to do with a patient having air embolism and then do my worst on the ones that asks to enumerate the plant alkaloids and antimetabolites. That was how it was run, and I can’t do anything but carry on. I hated memorizing. I’m this hard-headed, wishing the next quiz wouldn’t involve making another list of words that doesn’t mean a thing. 

My subconscious revenge, I suppose, is to prove that I need not memorize a book verbatim to get a reasonable high mark in the board exams. I’ve accepted the fact that I can’t memorize and I can’t get great marks for it. So i took the other approach.

When I started reading through my thick heavy books, I just read it through and try to understand what is written in it. I make the words fit and make it a memory that I’ll remember when the puzzling questions come. When remembering a new term necessitates more recalling, I posted it on my walls, repeated it in my head, and make it a part of some silly story. Suddenly, I started to like reading about anatomy and pathophysiology. I liked the feeling of being able to explain how the blood runs through our body, understand how the kidneys malfunction, why the liver is such a big deal, and more of that stuff. That was how I did it. 

I did get my revenge. But calling it revenge really doesn’t sound right anymore. It was actually more than what it is. It wasn’t a revenge because I knew in me that I’ve made so much effort not just because of these cranky thoughts but because most of the time, I just kept my ground then aimed high. I wanted for once to prove in me that I’m not failing, and that I can really make things happen if a I work hard for it. 

I did it, and it was beyond my own expectations. :)

Today, I was afraid I've told lies because I hallucinated.

Way to go House!

…

But for a while I realized that I wasn’t.

I just can’t believe it…