room to breathe
this place is truly sucking the life out of me. not that there was a lot of it to spare in the first place.
considering that i'm not now nor have i ever been a ray of sunshine, the happiness that i used to derive from being here, doing what i grew up thinking i was supposed to do, was something that i, in many ways, wanted to preserve.
but these past few months have slowly drained me of that happiness. the people, the things i'm learning (or not learning), the general atmosphere of high school pettiness. these things have all combined to-at last-make me question if what i think i'm getting out of this place (i.e. the prestige of the place, the knowledge that i am learning under [some] of the best professors alive, the idea that somewhere over the rainbow i might actually be compensated for the torture i have put up with) is worth it. worth waiting in the rain for transportation. worth staying up late, or forgoing sleep. worth getting sick every other week and never really getting well.
worth waking up for in the morning. because at night when i struggle to sleep it doesn't help that i know what it is i'm waking up to.
being made aware that you can't really measure up, even if you wanted to. that even if in moments of magnanimity and honesty you acknowledge that being latak and alcoholic has helped dragged your not so beautiful average down, to be complete in that honesty there must also be the acknowledgment that most of the time you are at the mercy (or no mercy to be exact) of professors who may or may not let their biases, be it against you (your politics, your height, weight, presence or absence of makeup, clothes, voice, grammar, etc), your block, your batch as a whole, or anger at a poorly prepared cup of coffee, or a pair of shoes they didn't get to buy, or their candidate for something not getting the post, affect the grades they give you.
not that there haven't been those truly excellent professors (in my admittedly biased opinion) who truly teach, and are very very good at it. there have been many, in my mixed list of the super nice and the super terrifying, all identical in the most important sense. that they teach. and you learn.
and there are the people. the people who just can't let go. who've let their anger at my sister carry over to me, who've let my very frank mouth get in the way of their tranquillity, who just can't live without dragging other people down.
some jerk (whose god damned student number in this god damned university is like a year shy of my HIGH SCHOOL student number, whose subjects and verbs can't seem to agree like they should've been taught to him in freaking elementary (it's "they don't", not "they doesn't", you mongoloid freakazoid trying hard snivelling little weasel), who actually had the nerve to go around saying crap about me and then lecture me on the values of graduating on time. talk about weird shit.
i might be latak, and i might be a five away from goodbye law, but my subjects and verbs are so agreeable they drink together, and if all goes well (i make the grade) and i actually decide to stay, i'll only be delayed a year. ONE YEAR. for the FIRST TIME in my academic life.
gah. the people they let in here.
don't get me wrong. the fact that i'm here is miracle enough. and i've always been thankful for it. i wasn't an honor student in undergrad, i never seemed to be a candidate for most likely to enter UP LAW (considering that two years ahead of me not even the university valedictorian of UP Manila managed to get in, and had to settle for being bitter and anti-up in makati). it always seemed to me that the only thing that got me in (though getting a respectable score in the lae helped) was my father's sheer force of will. his desire to see me, maybe not the smartest or prettiest of us five daughters, but the craziest, and the most like him, in the place that gave him the opportunity to be the person he is now, and gave him the chance to ensure that all of us had the best possible lives. and really, i've always been thankful for that will, and in the past two and a half years, in moments of doubt, i have used his will as my anchor.
but somehow, now, today. it doesn't seem to be enough.
and i don't think even my father's will for me can save the day.
considering that i'm not now nor have i ever been a ray of sunshine, the happiness that i used to derive from being here, doing what i grew up thinking i was supposed to do, was something that i, in many ways, wanted to preserve.
but these past few months have slowly drained me of that happiness. the people, the things i'm learning (or not learning), the general atmosphere of high school pettiness. these things have all combined to-at last-make me question if what i think i'm getting out of this place (i.e. the prestige of the place, the knowledge that i am learning under [some] of the best professors alive, the idea that somewhere over the rainbow i might actually be compensated for the torture i have put up with) is worth it. worth waiting in the rain for transportation. worth staying up late, or forgoing sleep. worth getting sick every other week and never really getting well.
worth waking up for in the morning. because at night when i struggle to sleep it doesn't help that i know what it is i'm waking up to.
being made aware that you can't really measure up, even if you wanted to. that even if in moments of magnanimity and honesty you acknowledge that being latak and alcoholic has helped dragged your not so beautiful average down, to be complete in that honesty there must also be the acknowledgment that most of the time you are at the mercy (or no mercy to be exact) of professors who may or may not let their biases, be it against you (your politics, your height, weight, presence or absence of makeup, clothes, voice, grammar, etc), your block, your batch as a whole, or anger at a poorly prepared cup of coffee, or a pair of shoes they didn't get to buy, or their candidate for something not getting the post, affect the grades they give you.
not that there haven't been those truly excellent professors (in my admittedly biased opinion) who truly teach, and are very very good at it. there have been many, in my mixed list of the super nice and the super terrifying, all identical in the most important sense. that they teach. and you learn.
and there are the people. the people who just can't let go. who've let their anger at my sister carry over to me, who've let my very frank mouth get in the way of their tranquillity, who just can't live without dragging other people down.
some jerk (whose god damned student number in this god damned university is like a year shy of my HIGH SCHOOL student number, whose subjects and verbs can't seem to agree like they should've been taught to him in freaking elementary (it's "they don't", not "they doesn't", you mongoloid freakazoid trying hard snivelling little weasel), who actually had the nerve to go around saying crap about me and then lecture me on the values of graduating on time. talk about weird shit.
i might be latak, and i might be a five away from goodbye law, but my subjects and verbs are so agreeable they drink together, and if all goes well (i make the grade) and i actually decide to stay, i'll only be delayed a year. ONE YEAR. for the FIRST TIME in my academic life.
gah. the people they let in here.
don't get me wrong. the fact that i'm here is miracle enough. and i've always been thankful for it. i wasn't an honor student in undergrad, i never seemed to be a candidate for most likely to enter UP LAW (considering that two years ahead of me not even the university valedictorian of UP Manila managed to get in, and had to settle for being bitter and anti-up in makati). it always seemed to me that the only thing that got me in (though getting a respectable score in the lae helped) was my father's sheer force of will. his desire to see me, maybe not the smartest or prettiest of us five daughters, but the craziest, and the most like him, in the place that gave him the opportunity to be the person he is now, and gave him the chance to ensure that all of us had the best possible lives. and really, i've always been thankful for that will, and in the past two and a half years, in moments of doubt, i have used his will as my anchor.
but somehow, now, today. it doesn't seem to be enough.
and i don't think even my father's will for me can save the day.
posted by peach at 11:04 PM
1 Comments:
law school was never advertised as life of peaches and cream :D rare is the law student who never doubted his/her ability to stay in, much less graduate, law school. Most, if not all, who have passed by the dirty beige walls of Malcolm Hall ruminate his/her stock (ex. ask the question: wtf M I DOING HERE?) while munching his/her fishballs drown that (and their sorrows) in C2 apple (or coke light).
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