OLA-la

first day as an OWLAH intern. just got my cases. eleven poor souls just got even more disenfranchised.

pity them.

the moment i stepped inside the OLA room i was told that one of the poor schmucks who drew me for an intern would be meeting with me. thank god he ended up not being in the mood to show up, we talked on the phone instead.

lucky him.

while of course i feel dumber than ever cause everyone else seems to know what they're doing, unlike me, i suppose it's better to learn now with people who are used to me being a dumbass.

of course it doesn't help my little ADHD self that apparently one has to spend the majority of 4 hours inside one room, bumping into any one of the 12 to 16 people who are in the same room for the same amount of time. i divided my time today between trying to sleep, wishing nothing client-like happened to me, and wanting to drink.

mostly wanting to drink.

and now i have to spend the entire weekend studying up on extrajudicial foreclosure, cause the first two years of law school i spent in a near drunken haze didn't prep me all that well for the NOW that is OLA.

nice.

i wondered not a few times today WHY i even exerted the effort i did to do this now. NOW. instead of 5 months from now.

why oh why must i always succeed in making my life seem like a series of increasingly bad decisions?

i drink at the worst times, i don't when i can. i fall asleep during ma'am beth's class, but manage to stay awake til 4 at home. i eat when it's becoming more and more obvious that really, i shouldn't.

i take OLA now because i want to experience it with my blockmates, forgetting that unlike my blockmates, i suck at REM.

if my clients knew these things about me, they'd probably feel like the unluckiest people ever to walk the planet.

can't blame them. good intentions, however much i have them aplenty, will do them no good.

booze. need booze.

fifty-seven and twenty five.

my father is a simple man. at the same time, the greatest man i have ever known.

it's his fifty-seventh birthday today, but he hasn't made plans to go to a special place to celebrate. he hasn't asked for special treatment or favors or anything of the sort. as i write this, he is going about his day the way he usually does, a few moments of random conversation here and there with whomever is in the same room with him, preparing lunch, picking up a few stray leaves from our garden, waiting for us sisters to be complete, smiling at the babies.

he has asked for nothing but our company and our time. he wants nothing but to celebrate his day with people he has loved completely, and given much to, often with seemingly nothing in return.

in a few weeks, he will join the class of 83 of UP Law in celebrating their 25th year as lawyers. i have seen a few of them, i have heard a few of them speak, i have observed how they act around each other. and i have met the rich, the famous, the notorious, the quiet, the happy, and the loud.

i have no doubt they have much to be proud of. and i suppose if other people see my father and his achievements in relation to his class, he might not be seen to have achieved much.

however, the measure of the man my father is is not for me the size of the house he has built for us or the places we have visited through his beneficence or any other material thing which most other people seem to use to gauge a man's achievements.

my father's measure as a man is in the quality of the sacrifices he has made for us, the joy he takes in being with us, raising us. it is in the simple pleasures that he delights in, never wanting more than he can afford, never asking for more than he feels he deserves.

we have not grown up in a huge house or in an extremely materially privileged manner. we have grown up, however, with a father who in every moment has nothing but our welfare and happiness in mind, who asks for nothing but perhaps a moment of peace and quiet, a nice cold beer to pass the time, a book to read in the afternoon hours.

we have had extremely good times and periods of difficulty. but in all those days where it probably seems to him that the sun would never shine its grace on him again he has never faltered in his faith, he has never given a thought to turning away from his principles in order to ease his burdens.

he serves his clients always to the best of his ability, always compassionate, always competent. as a lawyer he has never ever led anyone down dark and unscrupulous paths, and he has never allowed himself to be led down those same paths.

his brothers and sisters look to him as a father, seeking his guidance and his company even in their adult years. he has always been that, i suppose. a serious man people naturally come to for solace.

we, his daughters, have in one way or another disappointed him, added to his burdens, added to the gray in his hair. but should anyone dare to say something unpleasant about any of us to him, and you will earn his enmity. he has lived his life for us, ever since the day the first one of us was born. he knows of our faults, but he takes pride in our progress as human beings.

maybe during the 25th year celebration he will seem to observers an ordinary man among shiny and great people.

to me he will shine the brightest, as someone who has lived fifty-seven years thus far with unconditional love, absolute loyalty, and unshakeable integrity as his always present company.

arguably, he has lived a greater man and human being than some of the seemingly shiny people i will ever see.


happy birthday pappy.

a friend in the hand...

people always wonder why it never seems to bother me (or my sisters) that we have few really close friends.

well... some times, it does. after all, i'd have to be a total sociopath if i didn't ruminate and meditate on why i'm not self-actualized enough to be able to interact with normal people on a regular basis without wanting or needing a drink or two every now and then.

for the most part, though, people are right to wonder.

because for all that we can at times be social creatures, for all that i could dance and drink all day if the occasion should call for it, i am at my most peaceful surrounded by the few i can truly call friends.

it has something to do, maybe, with the fact that i have five sisters, but spent a few years away from them growing up. no family is perfect, and mine still is not. i have learned to love the quiet of being alone, as well as appreciate the freakish wavelength my sisters and i share whenever it's my dad's misfortune to get all five of us in the same place all at once.

perhaps it's that i've always thought my best away from the thoughts of others. i have a big family, and i've found over the years that i can best refrain from becoming a total whack job if every now and then i find a place to not be around them.

i also seem to have friends i never see on a regular basis. like mina who while in makati is still unable to reply to messages until like a month after. or alan whose work makes him busy right when i'm free. or yo who has pms more often than i do. or my youngest sister who lives in the same house i do but who i'm lucky to see even twice in a day.

not to be blame-free is the uncontroverted fact that i am, truly, quite a bitch.

i am impatient, i am opinionated, i am more often than not brutally frank, and i do not shy away from telling annoying people exactly how they annoy me. (which annoys them even more as they tend to like talking about how i annoy them when i'm not in the room)

so i am not suprised that after 25 years on this earth, i can truly count only a few people as real friends.

but however different we are (and we ARE!), however infrequently our paths cross, however much our opinions diverge on the simplest of issues, i hold these friends dear because they give me exactly what i need, and exactly what they demand i give them in return: loyalty and honesty.

and in this day and age, when so many people can sink to magnificent lows, when we find ourselves captives of our ambitions, when the unforgiving nature of living in any form of society demands that we conform in one way or another, when people slowly find themselves bartering away one little bit after the other of the qualities which used to be held so dear,

one friend who can tell you you've been a total dumbass schmuck is worth infinitely more than ten friends who will agree with you.

there is something to be said for refusing to pander to the dictates of getting along that politeness trumps honesty. i believe that if you ARE a true friend, the best act of friendship there is is to not be blind to your friend's faults, but to recognize said faults and make the decision to be someone's friend if not totally absolutely informed, then armed with at least enough facts so as to not be guilty of being blindly loyal to a person who is blind as well.

blind loyalty is not friendship. not knowing the facts about a person before making a judgment based on that person's presentations, not even making an effort to be informed, does your supposed friend a disservice instead of helping him become a better person.

if in my refusing to be blindly loyal in some occasions i lose a friend, or two, or three, then so be it. i am more afraid of walking in a crowd not knowing whose knife will be embedded in my back next than of walking a dark street alone.

a friend in hand.

mea culpa

it appears i forgot to actually post the previous post's contents. was in a hurry.

spare me your bullshit, would you please?