Kingdom Astoria

blah

2010-01-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

first day back from christmas break and it is monumentally awful.

shoot me, now.

My not so bad day

2009-12-12T02:43:00.000-08:00

Initially i was not looking forward to this day because it started at 4.30 am and that reason alone is enough to send me packing, but to make matters worse the agenda of the day is a 3 hour long exam :P

on top of that, while on our way to makati my stomach grumbled and tumbled like there was no tomorrow! :O and as soon as we set foot on campus i bolted from the car and into the nearest bathroom T_T

but from there on things went pretty good. the test didn't turn out so bad, I got to buy me a new cd, walk around a little and play arcades but the highlight of the day was our burger eating contest

the participants were vlad, pau and I. ginny was our judge :)) we ate 8, 5, 7 and 1 respectively which resulted in pained waddling back to the car and near-drunken posture as we travelled.

:) <3

I hope we all passed the exam and we get to stay together even in law school

are you who you want to be?

2009-11-27T08:35:00.000-08:00

I've written and rewritten this entry several times over and for some reason I can never bring myself to publish what is on my mind as of this moment because in the long run, I might cause irreparable damage to people i know who might read my venting the wrong way.

But the bottom line is, I feel trapped in my life. What started out to be my own choices have been eaten up by those around me and have assimilated them to such a point wherein you have no other choice but to stick with them.

I am pissed. I am angry. I am frustrated but I do my best to understand. I try and take those things into stride, one foot for myself, the other, well for others.

sometimes I just want to break free of all the expectations and relationships built around me. I want to leave and disappear, be my own for a while think about what i really want, who I really want to be because my life is so convoluted that i feel like i'm losing direction.

Do i really want to be in this relationship for me?

Do i really want to pursue this path for my own happiness?

Do i really want to do these things because I believe in them?

the world is moving so fast, its hard to just sit and reflect on the self sometimes.

What dreams may come

2009-11-27T06:22:00.000-08:00

I have always found it weird that ever since i was a child dreaming has seldomly been a pleasant experience for me.

When I was younger I went through a bout of night terrors that had me waking up with ear piercing screams and barely coherent answers. My mother recounted to me how she would ask what I dreamt about to cause me such a fright and she said I never did give a clear answer.

Then when I got a little older I started sleep walking. They put barricades on the door of my room and several other obstacles that I not only managed to get past but I actually pushed some of them aside. The farthest I ever got was out into our garage from my bedroom on the second floor. I woke up in my night gown bare foot and confused.

There were a few years of dreamless peaceful sleep before the nightmares started. They border anywhere from weird, to sexual to plain terrifying.

The lucid dreams are the worst because it make me feel like I am trapped and imobile in my own sleeping body while my mind is alert to the fact that as each harrowing moment passes by the feeling of fear increases and the ability to breath lessens. Now I quickly recognize the signs of my lucid dreams and try my best to wake up before I get to the point of terror. What I found effective was that whenever my dream self became able to wiggle my toes, I woke up. I tried experimenting and wiggling my fingers but it only lead me to false awakenings which was a much more tiring experience.

My pediatrician from way back in the day told me that it was due to the violence that I see on TV or something to that effect but now, I find that hard to believe because I hardly watch TV anymore (because there's rarely anything good on and I much prefer marathons) yet the dreams remain still as weird and brutal and senseless as before.

I've shared some of my dreams with a few friends and my boyfriend and they always tell me how bizarre my dreams are and have tried to psychoanalyze me with it. I kind of don't mind them anymore since I've been so used to them and their degree of feeling real has lessened but if someone out there can offer an explanation or maybe a similar experience then I'm all ears.

Friday love night

2009-11-22T20:57:00.000-08:00

When we were studying last friday night with a bunch of our friends for an all important exam yesterday the topic of conversation, somehow, lead to our relationship.

They asked several questions about love and relationships, our relationship in particular.

They asked about how we met, how we are staying together and most importantly they asked how we know you are in love and how do you find it.

There were so many things in my mind that i wanted to say but the words never came anything to close to how i really felt. It was a warm, gooey feeling, like your insides are melting (in a good way.)

I think everyone has to find their own answer to the question about love because it really is different for each. It's an experience, a rational choice and a whirlwind all in one package.

The way to find it is to remain open to all forms, shapes and identities that the love might come with, without sacrificing your own non-negotiables and/or necessary standards. It really is all that cliched give and take, sacrifice part of you jazz but at the same time one should keep in mind that it's also never ever one sided or like a martyr's cross.

I remember a couple of lines from a Plain white T's song that summarizes the experience for me...
"Our friends will all make fun of us and we'll just laugh along because we know that none of them have ever felt this way"

November 8, 2009

2009-11-08T02:11:00.000-08:00

Today we are 3 years and 2 months. (38 months)

Can't believe it's been that long.

Sometimes it feels surreal.

Confessions

2009-11-08T01:00:00.000-08:00

NOTE: These are personal reflections so if you don't like it or don't agree with it I can accept that but if you plan to reply with something crude and or rude then bugger off.

----

get your mind out of the gutter, this isn't an entry about my dirty secrets, quite the opposite in fact, it is an entry about religious confession

"Forgive me father for I have sinned, my last confession was about 6 years ago..." - Me, 2009

To be honest I sometimes feel like a sore thumb in my oh so religious family and the various religious educational institutions that I have attended in the past and one that i am still attending now.

I don't think i'd ever call myself an "anti-christ", a word that is more often than not misused, abused, misunderstood and then some. People who call themselves that are just misinformed or delusional.

Agnostic, not really because I do attend Sunday mass, diligently (partly against my own will) and I do say my nightly prayers before I hit the sack. At this point in time you may be asking, so why do I feel like such a religious sore thumb?

for starters, I don't use the sign of the cross, but not for the reasons I have been accused of which often goes along the lines of refusal to pray.

My real reason for not crossing myself is because I think it is an unnecessarily ritualistic mannerism that denotes a beginning and an end to prayer. Why can't life be a continuous prayer? No beginning, no ending, just a constant flow of dedication through living a value laden life instead of a ritualistically and institutionally prayer mandated life.

I only use the sign of the cross for show whenever I am tasked to lead the prayer as a show of respect to the tradition of the greater majority.

the other thing is, sunday mass and confession, I get the fact that people need to share their faith with others and whatnot community enrichment but what i don't get is where does anyone get off saying that you are not a good christian or catholic when you don't fulfill those requirements.

These practices are more social and cultural than religious in my perspective, proven by how parents drag their unwilling children to mass or how we tell children that people who don't attend sunday mass commit mortal sins. Or how some people are only good Catholics during sundays and whenever they are in churches but go out into the world and live totally different lives. I think this shows how ineffective genuine evangelization is in a country that once boasted itself as the only Catholic nation in Asia, which is coincidentally also one of the most corrupt and archaically feudal societies in the world.

I think that religion is, more than anything else, a personal relationship with your God, whatever that means for you and no one can dictate or judge that. There is no yard stick to measure the goodness of that relationship because it is unique for each and everyone. Your community of similar faith can only serve as guidance if you find that you are having difficulty but your beliefs are your own and your prayers are your own because your God is also your own.

With that said, I therefore always question confession. I learned for my theology classes that confession fulfills the human need to be heard and to hear the words "you are forgiven" but if it is really God that forgive and not the human agent then won't praying and confessing during that internal personal prayer be as valid as well? (If you know the answer to this question tell me, because I wasn't being sarcastic)

During my softmore year of high school I had my questions about confession but never got to ask them to anyone who could answer them. In college, I got some partial answers which, to an extent satisfied part of my queries.

Towards the end of 2008 and until mid way through the year of 2009 bad things started happening, one after the other. It seemed like it would never end. I began to be hateful of certain people (who i will not name even if you badger me). I hated them with a fervor that could make the earth crack open and satan do a back flip in hell. It made me feel unhappy being so hateful, and I even tried to convince myself that in praying for positive things for those individuals then it would make me a bigger person than them and understand that they were doing what they think is the best course of action for themselves. I reminded myself that they also have families and needs that pushed their incompetent decisions.

Anyway... so all this time that I was being hateful I continued to tell people around me that it isn't right to hope that bad things would happen to those persons and all that jazz. I kept it mostly to myself, save for the one person I always confide in. The secret smiting took a toll on me emotionally and for some unbeknownst reason during a recollection I was required to attend in school I voluntarily approached a priest for confession.

I spoke the words "forgive me father for I have sinned, my last confession was about 6 years ago and I'm sorry don't think i am a traditional catholic I just want to tell you something and ask you a few things." I then preceded to tell him what ate at me for all this time, and I began to slightly tear up at my own words. He asked me if I was mad at God for allowing all the shit to happen, I said no. "God didn't do that, they did. I just don't understand how such inconsiderate people exist and live with themselves."

Our conversation ended quick and then placed his hand on my head and absolved me as he was giving his advice and instructions.

After walking away from him I felt weird. I cried, only a little, but still I cried but what was weird was that I didn't feel anything afterwards. I didn't feel the hate inside me but I didn't feel relieved or renewed either. I just felt like I finally got it out and then that was it, no "I was right, confession is bollocks" or no "OMG confession does work." It was a hollow feeling that seeped through my sniffles.

I couldn't understand what that meant at the time and even now it still escapes me. Confession is neither defective nor effective, I think I would have felt better or worse coming clean to a close friend with good advice or a friend with bad advice for the latter.

I guess what confession offers is a stranger's ear and the knowledge that the man of the cloth sitting beside you or across from you can not judge you or at least he cannot voice his judgements out to you. The internet can also offer avenues to confess to strangers about secrets, dreams and hopes that you don't think your family or friends can accept but then again the internet is also filled with perverts, pranksters and several different kinds of idiots. A psychologist or psychiatrist might also be able to do the same thing but no one ever enjoys the feeling of being scrutinized under a microscope for disorders and malfunctions every time you speak.

At the end of the my re-experience of confession did nothing to convince me that it is something that we can not do away with but it did help me learn some things about myself for the next time I decide to undertake confession again, which probably won't be done with a priest but thank you all the same.

Back from the dead

2009-11-07T21:57:00.001-08:00

Hey,

I've been on blogging hiatus for a couple of years now but recently someone convinced me to start writing again.

So now, i'm here, writing for him and writing for myself as well, so I hope you stick around or come visit me again when this blog has finally gotten the ball rolling on my endless and sometimes trivial ramblings.

cheers,