Recourse
"So in love
ka nga?
I rolled my eyes for the fifth time. "
Hindi na nga! Bat ba ang kulit mo?"
People turned to look at our table, flabbergasted, perhaps, at my unsuccessful attempt to control my own temper. Q, the annoying, little twat, tried his best to apologize profusely, while I managed to get in a few deep breaths myself.
He finally went back to look at me, as the last of the scandalized diners turned away. It was his turn to roll his eyes. "
E paano ba naman kase ako maniniwala sa'yo? Sabi mo nakalimutan mo na siya pero pumayag ka pa rin?"
Now that was a perfectly fair question. Why, indeed?
That Thursday night, she was there. Perhaps, I had felt a bit more forgiving, then; I figured we hadn't talked for six weeks and it was a holiday. It could have been the right thing to do, I suppose. After all, she was still her.
"Favor
nga kase 'yun," I replied, remembering why we had talked that evening in the first place. She was apparently leaving for Florida, and maybe, it was because of that. It was because I knew that it may very well be our last that I naturally wanted at least one good memory for her to remember me by.
"
E bat dun sa isa?" He struggled to find the name. "
Ano na ule pangalan nun?"
"Kristine," I pointed out.
"
O, 'yun. Bat hindi ka naman pumunta, e sa U.S.T. na lang nga 'yun e."
"
Iba nga kase 'yun," I said half exasperatingly, trying to sound as honest as possible. "
May pasok pa kaya ako nun. Besides,
ginagawa ko pa 'yung project
namin."
Isn't it funny? Just when we thought we've finally managed to move on, someone makes us realize we really haven't. Sure, we've gotten away from it since the fourteenth, boards fizzing, sparking, burning enough to keep our heads distracted but only for so long until the project's finally done. Call it propensity, my knack of resurrecting what would have otherwise been erstwhile feelings for this particular so and so, Q's nosing around which almost always had me cornered, and my inexplicably winding up in that unmistakable doctor love moment. I guess it always showed that I really hadn't moved on. Why else would I have talked to Kanny about it in the first place? Barring that, why would I ask Q what he thought about her asking me a favor.
He was winning from the start, and he realized it. "
Sus, aminin mo na kase."
Maybe, just maybe, I know nothing of stoicism. It isn't that I know nothing of sacrifices, but I guess there's just that romantic hobnobbing a sentimental schmoe like me never passes up. So we thank God for favors, for fish wrapped in paper bags and tiramisu's in little cups, because that gives us the excuse to be with them even for a while.
Standstill
I received the call from Ray. I rushed back, barely an hour and fifteen under my pockets with nothing more, as the commute to school began tick-tick-ticking away. It was apparently bad news for some of us, who had accrued seven units of failure solely upon the day’s consultations. Four more placed them in conditional status; five would have them debarred. The one subject where only four from our section would have passed under normal, harshly coined merciless, circumstances, carried five units, and we were all five days away from knowing that for sure.
I arrived half an hour past eleven, the campus, a barren and deserted field, belonging only to the dead leaves and the wind. James and R.V. were there when I took the only flight of stairs to the bulletin, sitting almost too somberly by the bench a few spaces away. It was only then, as I counted sixty names, a few of which were repeated, did the truth of it all begin to sink in.
I would always be the apathetic oaf who welcomed change. When news of next term’s reshuffling first broke out, I was its first and perhaps, only outright vocal proponent, barring the dean himself. It became important to reach out as I wanted to cross the boundaries that separated A from B from C, and meet the remaining one hundred people in the pre-quadri-centennial batch who shared the same majors as I did. Maybe three years of having to meet the same people day in and day out, taking the same crap, and shoving it back had taken its toll. I wanted to move on, but I wanted something else.
We talked thereafter well until three; and it was the end. As my heart flipped flopped the way theirs probably had before me, it was time to go. There was perhaps, a finality to their tones, a sense of defeat in their voices. We had to move on. I found out that spirits were their last escape the day before, as it has always been then. I disapproved, although I suppose they had but wanted to relish the moments they had just as we were finally dismissed one last time this term. I half guess they knew it would have been their last, thought silently they had yesterday that was all but frozen in amber.
Fireworks
There were the seemingly little things - you know, the ones that we've all come to take for granted. You think it's a done deal, wrap up, think nothing more of it and move on.
But I guess we all learned something here today. Tempers flaring, decisions done, undone, nights spent drilling, soldering, cutting, burning, minds appeased, our backs against the wall, and we pushing back, we all had a glimpse at death once again. The things we've overlooked are not so little nor as simple at all, for they werelike bombs suddenly exploding when we least expected them.
It wasn't over - not by a long stretch. The slightly faulty supply was finally approved but the equalizer had been outright rejected; but I'm not really talking about his approval, for even when the equalizer finally gets accepted, I'd still have my conscience to nag me that the supply gave more than the what was set.
The months leading up to today had really been harsh. There's slightly more than one week left to go but it is only now that I've personally received my wake up call. It was something I should have contemplated eight months back.
So it all ends here today. This blog, that is. I've always hesitated closing down, feeling guilty of leaving, but duty beckons now more than it ever did. I guess the most important realization today was that I still know absolutely nothing. I understand there are things I have to do that are really, REALLY important.
So there, folks; goodbye.
And this is where we end
I guess I've always wanted to drop everything I've known, start again and go as far as my feet would take me without looking back. And yet it bears pointing out, after two months of grit and guts, and a guy breathing down your neck, a group who's probably not a group at all, and a professor who doesn't really know what he wants, that I've gone from a ticking time bomb, to a huge mushroom cloud, a crater and a bang. I've found resolve takes you only so much, for when your patience has been defused, you fall back to sheer, animalistic, unadulterated rage.
These are times when there's probably a better, more rational solution to the problem, but instincts keep you from being rational at all. How could you? When you've just taken a shot for everyone, cut classes to do the project, revised your end of the deal for the fifth time with a bum who just can't shut the hell up, said bum not keeping his end of the bargain himself, another fag on pot who does not understand the word "WORK", three other members not even bothering to help, the list goes on and on and on.
Spending the night in someone else's home, hiding behind the veil of "finishing the documentation" or what-not, probably only to play DS, or PSP, or both. It is absolutely abhorrable. They do not even have a shred of work ethics to talk about.
I AM seething; I probably should have dropped the group when I had the chance, but I guess we've crossed out more people from potential thesismates. I have lost all hope in humanity.
