GTKY is the new GTKM

What does my title mean? I think we're more familiar with GTKY, or Getting To Know You, are we not? And for me, my getting to know other people is my way of getting to myself a lot more. How so?

My life is a continuous process of getting to know myself better. I'm sure the same goes for everyone. Somehow, though, I know my ways are quite different. Just quite. Nonetheless, I have discovered many things about myself. 

The very first thing that I'd like to point out is that I'm a person who's very--and I say very--open for any possibilities. To be more specific, I don't close my mind to the possibility of me finding other guys in the future. Yes, that applies to me even when I'm in a romantic relationship with someone already. I mean, don't get me wrong... I still do cherish all the moments I spend with someone in the whole duration of our relationship. But the thing is, my principle is if he's the one, then he's the one. The only catch is that I don't limit myself to thinking that the person I'm in a relationship with is The One--instead, I simply let things be the way they are. (And probably make some slight alterations. Haha!)

I have really strong tendencies to get attached to people. That, dear reader, may or may not be a good thing. For one, though, I think this means I trust people just as easily. This means that it would be easier for me to get hurt as well. See, I've learned through the years that with attachment comes a great probability of being hurt and torn down to pieces. How comforting.

Yet, I know that no matter how great the possibility is of getting hurt, it's always good to try. Pain is constant in everything we do. Where there is love, there is pain. That's normal. It's the only way to maintain the balance in life. I believe in Mother Teresa's famous quote, "I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love."

The other thing I have to deal with now is my uncontrollable want to enjoy as much as I could in everything I do. It may sound selfish, but it is in my nature to somehow experiment in my interactions with the people I'm with, and in whatever relationship I'm in. Except probably when it comes to friendship. But that's a whole other story.

To further explain what I mean about my "uncontrollable want to enjoy", I shall give you an example. I somehow enjoy watching a guy get confused about the signs I give to him. It sounds harsh, but it's true. I don't do it on purpose though. I only realize that I enjoy such situations after they have already taken place. It's like hitting two birds with one stone--first, I get to prove that he is really into me, and second is that I take small pleasures in seeing the person try to decipher the mixed signals I send.

Above everything else, I realized that I don't like the feeling of being tied to something... or someone. Yet. 

I know for sure that the day will come when I'll be ready to settle down with one and only one guy for the rest of my life. And I'm just as sure that that time is not now. That has been the most important realization I have had so far, and it has made me more honest with myself about the feelings I feel toward people who involve themselves in my life.

Only when I got to know other people through my relationships with them have I discovered all of these realizations and knowledge about myself . Thus, GTKY is the new GTKM. 

What do I miss most?

It's almost four months since I arrived here in Cebu. I used to think it was only my friends and family I'd miss once I studied here. But four months of being away from the city I grew in made me realize there's so much to miss about home.

Since I've already mentioned about me missing my family, I might as well elaborate why. Why do I miss them so much, you ask? I miss them for many reasons, really. And even if it seems ironic that I somehow chose to go away on purpose, it doesn't make me miss them less. I miss their synchronized unpredictability, if such a thing's even possible. Haha! Since the first day that I arrived here, I've gotten used to my daily routine. Yet, a huge part of me misses having them complicate my routine.

Father's 5-star cooking. No one in this whole wide world could beat my father's superb, mouthwatering, and exquisite 5-star cooking. And that's one of the things I really miss the most. Aside from that, I also miss not having to think of where and what to eat for every meal. I just want to do other things, and when mealtime comes, my father would just serve a very delicious meal.

I miss my group of friends from high school. And I especially miss my best-est friend the most. It's not that I don't appreciate my new friends here--I really do appreciate them--it's just that I've grown really used to the synchronicity my best friend and I share. And I miss the four-year forged friendship I share with the rest of my friends there. There's absolutely nothing like it.

There's this adorably cute tea place there, too. Chingkee Tea had become my haven where I could just feel better about myself. I used to spend so much time with so many people there. It was my barkada's hang-out place. There's just something indescribable about that place which brings some familiar and calming aura to me. And considering that I haven't found a place like that here in Cebu, I miss Chingkee Tea even more.

But most of all, it's when I put all the aforementioned together that makes me want to just hop on a plane and go home in a jiffy. Because when I put all of those together, they make up the definition of home. And home is where I want to be right now. 

Wow, bad vibes!

I made this photo back in February of 2013. Despite the heavy aura one might feel when reading this, this really short rant was intended to encapsulate how negative I looked at life then. 

Unfortunately, some things never change. I have made a habit out of acting as my own villain. This has been the way I am for so long. And just like the cliche quote which says that old habits die hard, my life has revolved around the same principle. 

Contrary to popular belief, my optimism in times of darkness has its limits too. People grow tired of trying so hard and failing each try. I get tired, too. And since most of the time I find myself in a situation where I stand face to face with failure, the life expectancy of my optimism is lower than the skirt a prostitute wears to seduce a customer. How fantastic.

Yet as much as I tend to indulge myself in those dark pits of self-depreciating shit, there is a huge part of me that reminds me of how much I care about attaining happiness--which by the way is almost equivalent to negative one.

What's the point of this post? Oh, nothing, really. I just wanted to create a negative post. And hopefully, you found some bits of it a little--even just a little--funny. Thanks. 

My View on Nationalism

Nationalism has kept us from being total slaves of Spaniards, a colony of Japan, and a state of the USA. But, has it been enough to keep them away for good? I don't think so. 

Though it may not be very evident in the books we have today, the Filipinos' nationalism was what kept those colonizers away. At the same time, it was nationalism that gave us "hell". People talk about the Filipinos escaping the so-called hell like it has already happened--like we have achieved freedom. It might seem this way, but the truth is, we are still struggling to free ourselves from the strong grip that the US has on the Philippines. And truth be told then and again, if we truly have a sense of nationalism in us, we should choose to go through hell in the process of trying to successfully preserve the country together as Filipinos, as what President Quezon said, rather than go through a pretentious heaven filled only with temporary bliss under the American rule. We have fought for decades... why in the world should we stop now? Stopping would only mean that we didn't instill in us any sense of nationalism at all.

Now, we all know that Rizal wanted the Philippines to be a part of Spain. This act caused him to  be branded as a lukewarm revolutionary. But it doesn't matter now whether or not he was a lukewarm revolutionary, does it? What matters is the myriad of ideas that he had shared then, which caused to stir a revolution. His ideas have awakened the sense of nationalism in the Filipinos then. His ideas, which completely made a lot of sense, are still in us somewhere. The question that we should ask ourselves now, and whose answer matters as well, is if we use those ideas to attain total and genuine freedom--to not be a dependent society on other countries anymore.

What pushed the revolutionaries then to have almost attained freedom was the fact that they had had enough of being dictated. They have realized that the Filipinos aren't supposed to be bound to the approval of other people from different nations. The Americans, Spaniards, and Japanese were in our territory before. They should have been the ones subject to our rules and laws. But since some of us were probably fooled by their bright and brilliant ideas, they were able to take advantage of our ignorance. Thus, we were oppressed. Fortunately, there were those who were quick enough to realize that we have been deceived. And yes, there was a sudden outburst of nationalism.

But the question now is, when will the Filipinos today stand up against the current problems our country is facing? When will the majority see that we are not totally free? For if we have attained our so-called independence, why do we still depend on other nations to help us? Why do we still loan money from the World Bank when we don't have to?  Why do we still pay the debts of our previous corrupt leaders when we didn't even receive a single cent from them?

More importantly, though, we are becoming slaves of our current government. Perhaps if they had even a little sense of nationalism, those crocodiles and pork-eaters in power would see the true state of the Filipino people. They would break free from their hypnotized states and finally act for the common good.

Showing one's nationalism doesn't only mean being able to bring the country to attain high percentages of economic stability, or to settle for peace in exchange of being a state of another country. It is about caring for the nation and the people in it, doing something to help them, and doing more than enough for the country to finally become a independent and stable nation.

Filipinos... Indolent?

More often than naught, we Filipinos have been said to be indolent. Yet somehow, we always find a way to prove ourselves otherwise.

The cause of the problem--the problem that other people view us as stated above--goes beyond their shallow reason that it stems from 'the insufficiency of the infrastructures and incompetence of the pupils'. It starts with how we are molded in our homes and our schools. Little do we know that even these small communities are largely influenced by the bigger community; and more importantly, it is influenced by the way our country is being run. It is thus a mere reflection of the reality that we are in.

In the articles that I've read before, I noticed that they usually blame the people's distrust of the system for the . They push the wrong belief that since we no longer trust the system, we are led to violate it. In fact, here's a short passage I read in an article about the indolence of Filipinos:

"But the more important reason for lack of discipline is distrust of the system. It is the belief that following the rules gets you nowhere. If you fall in line, you may wait forever; others will find a way to get ahead of everyone. The idea is to devise your own trick, or to find a fixer you can pay or a powerful person whose influence you can tap in order to quickly get what you want. The assumption is that the system doesn't work, and is not meant to work."

This, ladies and gentlemen, leads us to the question: If it is indeed easy for a civilian to find shortcuts, and to not follow the rules just because they believe it will take them nowhere, then wouldn't it be far easier for our dear leaders today, who, by the way, are becoming bureaucrat capitalists?

I personally think that the only way to overcome the so called distrust of the system is for our nation's leaders to set an example. Contrary to the belief that they have no effect or whatsoever in our decision-making process, the government official must show us that we could trust them--that the system is functional and is there to serve its purpose. This way, believe it or not, there is hope for us because probably somewhere within us, a bulb lit up due to whatever hope there is that surrounds us.

It has been proven over the years--and it is still evident these days--that without the people, there is no government. It goes back to the purest reason why the government was created in the first place. The all powerful government of any country exists so that there are representatives of the Filipino citizens. They are there to govern the people, and to set an example. If they unceasingly show that they are corrupt, it only goes to show that indolence is indeed a necessary evil for one to get somewhere. Critically speaking though, the question is we all ought to ask ourselves is, if that's the case, isn't it unfair to the lower classes who are exerting all their efforts just to eat thrice a day?

I believe there is injustice in the little acts of indolence of those in power. I do hope that someday, soon, our leaders will overcome that problem, and learn to be what we used to be known as--industrious.

A Necessary Post for Unnecessary Thoughts

We recently took our third long exam in our introductory course to Political Science. And I have a feeling that I'll be failing this test for the third time in a row. A round of applause, please. Thanks.

Now, I think that's about enough of my sarcasm. Let me show you a dramatic side of me... for my least favorite subject during my first semester in my first year in college.

I've dedicated all the efforts I could to swallow a plateful of Political terms and whatnot, but it wasn't enough. I've sacrificed sleep and peace of mind, but it wasn't enough. Surely, many of my classmates share my sentiments. But they couldn't have felt it the way I did. To me, the moment I read test one and realized I didn't know the answers to all the questions, I already felt like crying and killing myself. And I'm not kidding.

Nothing is worse than feeling like I've sacrificed so much, yet I knew it wasn't enough. I was able to give a sure answer to only around 3% of the exam. Most of the time, I only had with me a bunch of intelligent, as well as stupid, guesses. And I know that kind of thinking would get me nowhere. Ever. So I felt like figuratively crying my heart out, and literally stabbing it till it be no more.

Yet despite the extremely strong urge to cut the thin thread that connects me to this oh-so unfortunate life of mine, I just couldn't commit such a horrible act. Instead, I made this poem.

Oh, Political Science, 

What have you done to me?

You've killed my hopes,

And darkened my life.

How could I ever overcome,

Overcome my fear of thee?

Oh, Political Science,

I've spent sleepless nights for you.

Got high on glucose and caffeine,

And spent more than enough.

How could I ever get over you?

My, what must I do?

Oh, Political Science,

I cannot fathom thee.

There is not a single hope,

Nor some salvation left.

But I'll find a way, mark my words.

I'll pass your subject, just you see.