Fifty more days. . .

It always feels good to talk with someone who shares the same ordeal. Am referring to my encounter with my classmate this afternoon.  Expressing the same excitement to update what has been, he said if he didn’t make it, it will be the end of the line for him. Never again. The best response i thought of is to be subtle and  silent just to send the message that I understand what’s going on. I cannot invade the end of his mind.  Only those who took it from the heart could appreciate the emotional and psychological setback of the bar exams.

The  dean of our law school once shared that if there’s one experience she wouldn’t want to repeat, it is the agony before and after taking the bar examinations. And so she didn’t. She is now a lawyer. I want to say the same lines, but I could not. Am still in the state of wanting to exorcise that experience out of my system which is taking my nerves up side down each moment.

Many times I desire to submerge down to my deepest haven in all the days to come before the judgment. My mind often refuses to get out of my comfortable shell to evade another encounter with questions, speculations and expectations am so scared to answer nor entertain. They say that I made it…. I say oh god I could only wish..

He said fifty more days to go. . .

I dwell to quiet longing.

Protected: Nimble Cheers…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

“Dance With My Father”

He is the man in my thought during the four grueling Sundays of September 2007. Still vivid, I remember I would cover my face with my two palms during the fifteen minutes for all the eight law subjects which was the alloted time to relax, consolidate ideas, arranged the approaches prepared a week before each and every sunday… before the examiners allow us to open the question sheet and jot down the best ideas we could possibly write no matter how crocked they would be. I used the fifteen minutes to talk to him and asked him wherever he is to stay with me, tap my back, cover me with strength and courage to deal with the subject prescribed for each and every moment. I was crying without tears during those times, grasping for the embrace of a ghost who exist deep in my heart…. scared, nervous and anxious, bravery to overcome such was my weapon… and i survived… (only to deal with another battle, months after… though that’s another story).

 

He patiently taught me how to move the pawn, the rook, the knight, the bishop, the queen, the king…… and the tactics and strategies to stalemate the opponent. The first stuff i tried to master was an old dilapidated chess book which my young mind could hardly comprehend. He laughed at my moves… I never defeated him… Until i eventually got tired thinking and analyzing the wisdom behind.

He taught me to pronounce words correctly to come up with the correct tone. He taught me the first note. But I never sang a good song. His forte were that of Matt Monroe and Nat King Cole…. he sang many Ilocano old songs. I could have recorded them all. I miss terribly his voice..

He taught me how to appreciate current events, history and geography long before my school teacher’s patterned discussions in class during my primary years… No wonder I got my best final exams in Social Studies in Grade School… perfect score. I would lost track in the years to come…

I would see him dissolve into nothingness as i grew up. Living a life that he wanted, i always remember his lines . . . life is short…. and so he did. However, his eloquent decisions prevailed that would eventually influence into what think i am now as a person.

During casual conversations I initiated with a seventy two year old beautiful lady i fondly call Tita Tere, (another beautiful soul who i stayed with during the pre bar review), she told me the reason why she did not get married. Well travelled as she is, of all the numerous men who courted her here and abroad, she said she never found the character she was looking for in a man… the kindness and gentleness of her father. . . i do not intend to subscribe to her pattern though, but maybe her standard is every woman’s honest longing..

Last January seven, my family celebrated his sixth death anniversary… It’s been five christmases without the man i call my father.

My bar examination is dedicated to him.

 

 

 

“Ten Ways towards Empowerment”

 

I often believe that the best company is always one’s self….Extracted from my old old journal it is so real… so true.

1.      Create a space for yourself. It’s very important to have a place or time for just yourself. Have fun creating a room or personal corner that fills you with joy and feels like home. Date yourself and find your likes and dislikes. Enjoy who you are.

2.     Spend some quiet time by yourself every day. If noise and activity constantly bombard your life, you are drowning out your inner guidance. Enjoy the quiet time, sit or lie down, and just be.

3.     Listen to the little voice inside of you. Learn to distinguish the voices behind your inner dialogues. Don’t ignore your higher self. You may make your life harder than it needs to be.

4.     Ask yourself questions; never assume your answers. Challenge yourself with questions daily. Work from a self-knowledge base rather than answering to please or rebel against others. Be honest about who you are or you may disappoint yourself and others.

5.     Find an activity that fills you with joy. When we do the things we love, we love the life we have and learn to love ourselves.

6.     Wake up each morning and do an internal check. Before you jump out of bed and run off to the next activity, take a few moments to be with yourself and check-in with how you are feeling, what you are thinking, and where you are going.

7.     Let your spirit define who you are rather than the outside world. Don’t dress outside in, dress inside out. Wear your spirit proudly and attract more contentment to you. Don’t rely on an external image (i.e. clothing, hairstyle, and status symbols) to tell you who you are.

8.     Be honest with others about your needs and boundaries. Once you know what you need, let others know. Don’t mix your messages. If you remain silent, there’s a chance of disappointing yourself and others more than the truth ever could.

9.     Process what others have to say about you. Don’t take their words for Gospel, but don’t ignore it. Let perspectives outside of yourself give dimension to your internal picture. Balance between taking people’s words as ultimate truth and ignoring what is being said. Realize everyone sees the world through his or her own filters (past experiences, needs, wants). Listen for the truth with love.

10. Give thanks to the force that created you. However you name the force that created you, give thanks for who you are. When you give thanks, you acknowledge your beauty and have the ability to cherish yourself more and more.

 

 

 

Some Selected Quotations by Gloria Steinem

I just love to share some of the best words i have kept, worth pondering as I look inward more often and come to terms with age…..

the one in italics is my favorite…

We’ve begun to raise daughters more like sons… but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters…

• I have met brave women who are exploring the outer edge of human possibility, with no history to guide them, and with a courage to make themselves vulnerable that I find moving beyond words.

• The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

• If the shoe doesn’t fit, must we change the foot?

• The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

• The authority of any governing institution must stop at its citizen’s skin.

• Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.

• A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

• Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.

• If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn’t it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?

• This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution. Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour in which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.

• Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren’t, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.

• Most women’s magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.

• We know that we can do what men can do, but we still don’t know that men can do what women can do. That’s absolutely crucial. We can’t go on doing two jobs.

• We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.

• Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.

• I don’t breed well in captivity.

• Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.

• But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don’t get young men standing up and saying, ‘How can I combine career and family?’

• Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.

• Most women are one man away from welfare.

• Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.

• Someone asked me why women don’t gamble as much as men do, and I gave the commonsensical reply that we don’t have as much money. That was a true and incomplete answer. In fact, women’s total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage.
The family is the basic cell of government: it is where we are trained to believe that we are human beings or that we are chattel, it is where we are trained to see the sex and race divisions and become callous to injustice even if it is done to ourselves, to accept as biological a full system of authoritarian government.

• Happy or unhappy, families are all mysterious. We have only to imagine how differently we would be described — and will be, after our deaths — by each of the family members who believe they know us.

• Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days.

• Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.
• From pacifist to terrorist, each person condemns violence — and then adds one cherished case in which it may be justified.

• No man can call himself liberal, or radical, or even a conservative advocate of fair play, if his work depends in any way on the unpaid or underpaid labor of women at home, or in the office.

• The only thing I can’t stand is discomfort.

• For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.

• Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

 

Taurus in the year of the rat

I am a Martial Law baby (PP 1081, September 1972, no connection though with this article) and happen to be a Tauruean, born in the year of the rat. If what contain in this astrological study has absolute basis towards my life’s direction, (which I do subscribe) then maybe, just maybe, it is a reality check on my being…. sometimes, it feels good to know other schools more than the conventional belief…

With my fingers cross, though I don’t expect much, maybe 2008 is my year with all plans, plans, and still plans…

Taurus

“The Egyptian Hourus was the bull of heaven, and a white bull was sacrificed in Babylonia at the New Year to placate Ramman, the god of thunder and lightning”

The Taurean’s characteristics are solidity, practicality, extreme determination and strength of will – no one will ever drive them, but they will willingly and loyally follow a leader they trust. They are stable, balanced, conservative good, law-abiding citizens and lovers of peace, possessing all the best qualities of the bourgeoisie. As they have a sense of material values and physical possessions, respect for property and a horror of falling into debt, they will do everything in their power to maintain the security of the status quo and be somewhat hostile to change.

Mentally, they are keen-witted and practical more often than intellectual, but apt to become fixed in their opinions through their preference for following accepted and reliable patterns of experience. Their character is generally dependable, steadfast, prudent, just, firm and unshaken in the face of difficulties. Their vices arise from their virtues, going to extremes on occasion, such as sometimes being too slavish to the conventions they admire.

They are faithful and generous friends with a great capacity for affection, but rarely make friends with anyone outside their social rank, to which they are ordinarily excessively faithful. In the main, they are gentle, even tempered, good natured, modest and slow to anger, disliking quarreling and avoiding ill-feeling. If they are provoked, however, they can explode into violent outbursts of ferocious anger in which they seem to lose all self-control. Equally unexpected are their occasional sallies into humor and exhibitions of fun.

Although their physical appearance may belie it, they have a strong aesthetic taste, enjoying art, for which they may have a talent, beauty (recoiling from anything sordid or ugly) and music. They may have a strong, sometimes unconventional, religious faith. Allied to their taste for all things beautiful is a love for the good things of life pleasure, comfort, luxury and good food and wine and they may have to resist the temptation to over indulgence, leading to drunkenness, gross sensuality, and covetousness.

The Rat

Being the first sign of the Chinese zodiac, rats are leaders, pioneers and conquerors. They are charming, passionate, charismatic, practical and hardworking. Rat people are endowed with great leadership skills and are the most highly organized, meticulous, and systematic of the twelve signs. Intelligent and cunning at the same time, rats are highly ambitious and strong-willed people who are keen and unapologetic promoters of their own agendas, which often include money and power. They are energetic and versatile and can usually find their way around obstacles, and adapt to various environments easily. A rat’s natural charm and sharp demeanor make it an appealing friend for almost anyone, but rats are usually highly exclusive and selective when choosing friends and so often have only a few very close friends whom they trust.

Behind the smiles and charm, rats can be terribly obstinate and controlling, insisting on having things their way no matter what the cost. These people tend to have immense control of their emotions, which they may use as a tool to manipulate and exploit others, both emotionally and mentally. Rats are masters of mind games and can be very dangerous, calculative and downright cruel if the need arises. Quick-tempered and aggressive, they will not think twice about exacting revenge on those that hurt them in any way. Rats need to learn to relax sometimes, as they can be quite obsessed with detail,

intolerant and strict, demanding order, obedience, and perfection.
A valuable lesson for Rats is to learn to consider others before themselves, at least sometimes, and to avoid forcing their ideas onto others. Rats are fair in their dealings and expect the same from others in return, and can be deeply affronted if they feel they have been deceived or that their trust has been abused. Sometimes they set their targets too high, whether in relation to their friends or in their career. But as the years pass, they will become more idealistic and tolerant. If they can develop their sense of self and realize it leaves room for others in their life as well, Rats can find true happiness.

According to tradition, Rats often carry heavy karma and at some point in life may face an identity crisis or some kind of feeling of guilt. Rats are said to often have to work very long and hard for everything they may earn or have in life. However, a Rat born during the day is said to have things a bit easier than those who are born at night. Traditionally, Rats born during the night may face extreme hardships and suffering throughout life. Rats in general should guard themselves against hedonism, as it may lead to self-destruction. Gambling, alcohol and drugs tend to be great temptations to Rat natives.

Traditionally, Rats should avoid Horses, but they can usually find their best friends and love interests in Monkeys, Dragons, and Oxen.
Professions include espionage, psychiatry, psychology, writing, politics, law, engineering, accounting, detective work, acting, and pathology.

THE WATER RAT 1912 AND 1972

Being guided by the Water element means these Rats have a knack for influencing people. With their strong intellectual powers and great insight, they are also great puzzle solvers. They are quick to understand others and are incredibly practical people. Rats apply their talents to their everyday lives, making them obliging, generous and compassionate to other people. Generally, they are liked and respected by everyone. Like all Rats, however, they can be determined to seek their own gain, and will not mind using these talents to achieve it – though generally without losing anyone’s respect in doing so.

RAT Lovers and partners

Rats are beautiful people with magnetic personalities. The Rat himself can’t help but notice the admiration he receives from others. If the Chinese say there are few poor Rats, there are an even fewer number who are not sexually stimulating- especially as young people. Rat people are romantic, and are always happier to have someone to share with.

TAUREAN RAT

Taurean Rats are intimidating people. Their sharp minds never skip a beat and they don’t lose sight of their goals. Unconventional deep down, they like Stability, Being Attracted, Things Natural, Time to Ponder, Comfort and Pleasure. They highly dislike Disruption, Being pushed, too hard Synthetic or “man made” things, and Being rushed .

A borrowed poem…

An item i have kept for a long time, t’was painstakingly translated by somebody from its original version. I can recall after so many years how we discussed it. . I only hope the translation gives justice to the message of the author.. However,  i can’t remember anymore the exact title . . but some things though are most remembered not through the title…this is one of those…it’s Victor Hugo’s. .

 

First of all, how I wish you love

and while loving, also be loved

and then, if it’s not like this,

be brief in forgetting

And after you’ve forgotten,

don’t keep anything.

 

I wish then that it wasn’t like this

but if it is,

you could be a person

without desperation.

 

I wish also that you have friends

Even bad and inconsequence ones,

They should be strong

and loyal to you.

and at least you have one

in whom you could trust

without doubting.

 

I wish you have enemies.

Not many or not too little

Just in the right number.

so that you will have to question

Your own certainties,

and truths as well.

 

I wish you were useful

But not irreplaceable

And in your bad moments,

When you don’t have anything else

This usefulness is enough

To keep you standing.

 

So equally,

I wish you to be tolerant

Not with those that make little mistakes

Because that is easy,

But with those that make a lot of mistakes

For this will be of no remedy.

And make good use of this tolerance,

To set example for others.

 

I wish that being young,

You don’t mature too quickly

And once you’re mature,

Don’t insist in getting younger.

And when you’re old,

Don’t make despair

Because each age

Has its pain and pleasure.

And these are necessary

To have them influence amongst us.

 

By the way

I wish that you were sad

At least once a day

And in this day, I want you to discover

That to love everyday is good,

To laugh often is boring

And to laugh constantly is an illness.

 

I wish that you discover 

With a maximum urgency

That above and inspite of everything,

There are people around you

Who are depressed,

Unhappy and are treated unjustly.

 

I wish that you caress a cat,

You feed a bird 

And listen to its chirp as well,

As it sings triumphantly

Its early morning song.

Because in this way,

You will feel good for nothing.

 

And then I wish you

sowing a seed 

Even if it is very little.

And you have to accompany it

In its growth.

So you will discover

How many lives a tree is made of.

 

I wish as well that you have money

Because it is needed to be practical.

And at least once a year,

Put some of these money infront of you

And say “This is mine only”:

So it is very clear

Who owns who.

 

Also,

I wish the demise

of any of your love ones,

And if some of them die,

You could cry without lament

And without feeling guilty.

 

Finally,

I wish for you that being a man,

You had a good woman

And being a woman,

To have a good man.

Tomorrow and the day after.

And once they are exhaust,

They smile and speak about love 

To start again.

If all these things would happen to you,

Then,

I don’t have any other wish for you

Anymore.

 

Mother

by Randolf  S. David

Nation, Self and Citizenship, An Invitation to Philippine Sociology

 

Long after they have delivered them into the world, mothers continue for some mysterious reason to feel deeply responsible for their children, for what they have become or will become. It is a burden that is not as often associated with or as intensely experienced by fathers.

Children are more properly seen as their mothers’ creations, rather than their fathers’. It is not only because they are more directly formed from their own flesh that mothers look upon their children as their unique possessions. It is also because, more than anyone else, it is mothers who gaze at the faces of their young in total contemplation and prayerful hopefulness. In contrast, fathers—typically—are, at best, a benign background presence in their children’s lives. At worst, they are the enemy from whom mothers shield their little cubs.

But it is, ironically, in the nature of patrilineal societies that children take their father’s surname, rather than their mother’s. the mother’s authorship, which may, for a while survive with the single-letter initial of the maternal surname, is often subsequently erased to give space to a child’s second name.

Fortunately, such conventions are never powerful enough to obliterate a mother’s signature upon her children’s persona. Much of this signing is, of course, latent and unintentional. The mother’s life speaks for itself; she signs her name on her child as she lives. Nietzsche probably said it best: “Everyone carries within him an image of woman that he gets from his mother; that determines whether he will honor women in general, or despise them or be generally indifferent to them.” (italics mine)

If this view is correct, then a mother’s greatest achievement is not to be found in the material or professional accomplishments of her children but in the special sensitivity and esteem with which they regard women in general. Do her sons treat other women as nothing but child-bearers and objects of pleasure, whose opinions do not count beyond the practical areas of the household? Do her daughters look upon themselves as nothing more than helpmates to their father, brothers and husbands?

Or do they think of themselves as autonomous beings with an equal right to full personal development. (italics mine)

I do no not mean to suggest that parenting is principally the accountability of mothers. There is already enough mother-blaming in patriarchal cultures. And I am myself uncomfortable about singling out the mother’s role for special attention when we try to explain the outcomes of parenting. But today happens to be Mother’s Day.

But, more to the point, I think what we are dealing with here is more powerful than parenting. It has to do with models of being that are unconsciously passed on. The image of woman modeled by one’s mother is especially crucial because of the natural affinity between mother and child and the saliency and duration of the relationship. In contrast, that between the father and the children is subject to countless mediations.

A mother who does not stand up to a chronic wife-beater cannot possibly inspire confidence in her daughters nor respect for women in her sons. A mother who lives her life totally in the shadow of her husband and who panics when he is not around cannot teach anything about self-reliance and autonomy. (italics mine) There is of course the power of negative example – that an acquiescent mother could produce a willful daughter—but such reaction formation can often swing to the opposite extreme.

If what we have been saying here has any basis, then perhaps there is every reason to hope that a meaningful revaluation of values, especially those pertaining to women, could begin with the education of mothers about their rights as persons. Can such education perhaps reduce the number of rapists and wife-beaters in the next generation? Will it have any effect on the number of children who are sexually molested by their own fathers?

I am not aware that any studies have been done on the perceptions of women held by convicted rapists and whether these bear any relationship to the kinds of lives their own mothers led. There are however many studies on mother-daughter relationships and most of the fascinating findings from these explorations are summarized and most of the fascinating findings from these explorations are summarized in the passionately written book Mother-Daughter Revolution be Debold, Wilson and Malave.

They write: “Women’s relative lack of power in society creates a bitter complication in mother-daughter relationships. One of the most painful ironies of mothering in patriarchal culture is that mothers, because they have to enforce the limits on their daughters to protect them, end up being betrayers in their daughter’s eyes… the enforcers of ever more costly losses in girls’ freedom to do and to be.” (italics mine)

Such situation often produces a syndrome termed “matrophobia” by the writer Adrienne Rich — “the fear of becoming one’s own mother.” Most women, according to the authors, suffer from “matrophobia” even when they feel and profess only genuine love and affection for their mothers. They struggle painfully NOT to be like them because they associate their mothers with the victim they do not want to become.(italics mine)

 

“The attempt of women to exorcise their mothers from their system is self destructive,” say the authors. The enemy is the culture that assigns to mothers the role of enforces of the ethos of submission and compromise to their daughters. (italics mine)And the solution cannot be found in the rhetoric of mother blaming or in erecting walls between mothers and daughters, but only in the persistent “truth telling” that should characterized all mother-daughter interactions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protected: Politics, power, livelihood and others

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Cold

I guess this song is the silent words of my heart in this space… introduced to me a long time ago by somebody with whom i shared common thoughts.

still the same … same indignation about ignorance, starvation, selfishness, and cold heart…

 

WISH YOU WERE HERE

So, so you think you can tell

Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field

 from a cold steel rail?

A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

And did they get you to  trade

your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?

And did you exchange
a walk on part in the war

for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We’re just two lost souls

swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
running over the same old ground.

What have we found?
The same old fears,
wish you were here.