short life update

The university I was talking about in my last post emailed me again this morning. (They’ve been doing that a lot lately.) They were convincing me to apply to them, telling me that there were a lot of financial aid programs for international students and that there were also a lot of opportunities in store for me. They even waived the USD70 (~3,700PHP) application fee, which is crazy. Needless to say, I spent the whole day semi-regretting my decision not to take a gap year to apply abroad. (New York. New York!)

I could be in Canada next fall or somewhere in the East Coast if I apply. I don’t know. My mother probably won’t be too open to the idea of sending me abroad even if I do get in on a full ride to the university I was talking about because it’s a liberal arts school (like most schools in the States), meaning that the kind of undergraduate programs that they’re offering include Biological Sciences, Integrative Neuroscience, Philosophy, Mathematics, Finance, etc., all of which my mother dislikes because she prefers I study something like Nursing, or Physical Therapy, or Veterinary Medicine, or generally something related to Math or Science that’s going to guarantee me a job that isn’t related to teaching (I’m totally fine with teaching jobs. My mom isn’t, though). I mean, she’s all for sending me abroad, but only if I study those or something similar to those. She was all for sending me to Germany when I told her about the free college tuition scheme for international students when I was in tenth grade.

I’m really stressed out by this. I feel like I’m letting a huge opportunity slip right through my fingers. I don’t know. I really don’t know.

Studying Abroad

I am sitting in the study hall of my dorm as I am writing this. It’s a Thursday. It’s my first week in college and so far, things have been extremely tiring and challenging - challenging because I’ve only now just realized how suck-y my time management skills truly are, tiring because I can’t be bothered to take a jeep to my classes regardless of the distance from my dorm, which means that a huge chunk of my day is spent walking. The sudden jettisoning-out from my months-long state of lethargy is probably a factor contributing to my tiredness, too.

The title of this post is probably confusing you. Studying abroad?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my current university. I do. I truly do, with all my heart - just one week here and God, it feels so good to know that the next six years of my life will be spent in an institution I love and actually belong in. It’s a drastic change from my Catholic school upbringing, where students who are different are ostracized for not being the portrait of a good Catholic. Finally getting out of that feels incredibly good. No more getting sent to the head teacher over the most trivial of things. No more not being able to speak my thoughts online because, I quote, I’m “carrying the name of the school.” Like... what? Why does the school hold jurisdiction over my personal life and what I do when I’m out of the institution? I signed up for school, not for a convent.

Being in my current university is a big thing for me. It’s completely free, because we’re technically the country’s scholars, and the food is cheap, the air is fresh, and everyone is so, so nice. I’ve yet to meet a not-nice person. But—

The prospect of studying abroad never seems to be far away. In fact, it feels like it’s actually following me around. Before I left home for college, my brother told me, “You know, I never thought that you were gonna end up studying in UP.” When I asked him why, he said, “I don’t know, I thought you were going to study abroad or something.” Last Monday, while I was in-line to get my picture taken for my I.D., I saw a poster for an exchange program in Canada on one of the bulletin boards. Coincidentally, the partner university was one of the universities I had planned on applying to earlier this year. So, I spent the rest of the day with the thought of studying abroad just in the recesses of my mind.

It’s the small things. Even though I really am happy where I am now, I feel like a part of me will always long to know what possibly would have happened had I taken a gap year to apply to colleges abroad instead. Like, would I have been accepted? Rejected? The not-knowing sucks, and I hate it. Sometimes I hate myself too, for being so indecisive.

I realized a couple of weeks ago that I would have qualified for a scholarship in a university in New York had I just pushed through with applying to that university. I came as close to adding that university to the list of institutions I was applying to in CommonApp, but nothing beyond that. Honestly, I was scared that I was going to get rejected by every university in the States I was going to apply to and that fear kept me from actually asking my parents if I could take a gap year or maybe defer my enrollment to focus on college apps. That, and I was too late, anyways - I hadn’t taken the SATs yet and the applications deadline for almost every college was in January. (Most colleges require either your SAT or ACT scores.) I hadn’t written an essay yet, hadn’t passed my transcripts, hadn’t asked for letters of recommendation, et cetera.

If I had realized early on that I was actually eligible for a scholarship in the States, even if it was just a single university, I likely would have deferred my enrollment in UP, took the SATs, and applied abroad. Alas, I got my class ranking too late, and didn’t realize at the time that I could apply and (possibly) get accepted on a full-ride to that uni in New York. It sucks, I know. When I think about it, I feel like banging my head against a wall because of the stupidity of the entire situation.

In my defense, though, no one was exactly helping me with anything. My parents knew I wanted to apply but they were too busy and had zero knowledge with the application process. My friends hadn’t ever thought of applying abroad and so they had no idea how to go about applications as well. I basically had no one but myself, which meant that I had to figure out everything on my own. It was stressful, hard, discouraging.

I’m still holding onto the possibility that someday I actually do get to study in another country. Maybe I’ll get to study in my dream university in the States. Maybe I’ll get to study somewhere in Europe. Either way, if it’s meant to be, then I’ll get there. But as of the moment I’m gearing towards focusing on the now, on the present. Like studying in advance for my Chemistry classes. Or understanding my Ethics readings, where I got to introduce myself to the class in Spanish the other day hehe. College is crazy, and a hell of a lot more academically rigorous than high school. All the more reason to strive and do better, I suppose!

May Museum Hopping (+ a brief reflection on my life and education)

The end of May came with my cousin and I visiting the newly-opened National Museum of Natural History and the National Museum of Anthropology. This post is way overdue, I know, but bear with me - everybody knows I’m nothing if not lazy. (No hay nada nuevo.)

This trip of ours wasn’t planned at all. We decided on just winging it, hopping on a bus bound Lawton first thing in the morning. All we knew was that we were going to the new National Museum and making plans on the spot. It was a good thing that we arrived early, because even at ten o’clock in the morning there was already a line that extended all the way to the bottom of the museum’s exterior staircase.

We only got in after waiting in-line for around twenty minutes, but it was worth it.

On Dissent

My Dad has told me millions of times that we belong to a family of idealists. As such, a lot of my relatives (including my father himself, during his youth) were—are—activists, rallyists, you name it. I'm not shy of this fact. In all actuality, I'm proud of it. I distinctly recall being told that my grandfather once found a home-made bomb under my uncle's bed in the 70s, during the height of Marcos' rule, and while I'm glad that my lolo found it (because had it been set off where he'd been meaning to set it off, chances are that innocent lives would have been lost), my uncle's sheer dedication to his cause is something I've never forgotten and would like to emulate (though not at the cost of innocents).

Recently, I found out that I got into my top-choice university, which I mentioned in my previous blog post. My university is known for its students who are most-often branded as aktibistas that whine incessantly about the government yet do nothing ‘substantial’ to change the way things are. (I disagree. Isn’t publicly denouncing something the government has done already a step towards change? Does that not signify raising awareness on a certain matter that needs to be solved?) I know that when I begin studying there, I will be called an aktibista and a waste of taxpayer money myself but: I don’t care. Be that as it may, one can’t deny that the very same type of students get latin honors and place in the top ten of various licensure examinations each year even as people tell them that they should just focus on academics instead of being out in the streets clamoring for change.

I'll be frank: I know that if I were to join rallies and protests, my parents wouldn't condemn it. I know that they trust my judgement when it comes to political and social issues (even though we sometimes disagree on a few things), because I was raised to be critical (though I admit that I sometimes fall prey to careless thinking) before ultimately deciding to fight for or to comment on something. I'm the age my Dad was when he was in the streets protesting against Marcos' regime. In a few years, I'll be the age he was when he partook in the first EDSA revolution that finally overthrew the dictator and plunderer Ferdinand Marcos. All these he did when he was in college, and he continued to do these things even after graduating. My Dad counts himself lucky that he wasn't one of the many people who were detained and/or killed during the Martial Law era, because a lot of people weren't and were never to be found again. To be honest, I've already thought of the possibility that I might somehow lose my life fighting and dissenting against the government, what with the current state of the administration and the way our president deals with certain things (Read: Oplan Tokhang, EJKs).

Caleruega Church, 26th of February

This was a spontaneous trip.

It was my mom’s birthday. We (my mom, her best friend, and I) had initially gone to Town to go to Mass in the nearby church and to have lunch in one of the restaurants within the mall. My mother thought she’d spend the day just roaming around and going on one of her numerous shopping trips - that is, until her best friend suggested we go to Caleruega in Tagaytay, since the two of us hadn’t been.

The trip lasted a little more than an hour. Caleruega is just at the tip of Nasugbu, Batangas, which means it’s close to a lot of Tagaytay’s amenities. We didn’t have time to go to other places though - not that it matters. We live so close to Tagaytay (not too close, we’re an hour-and-a-half’s drive away at most) that we’ve most likely gone to most of the tourist spots at one point or another.

I won’t delve too much on what I saw while I was there. I found Caleruega beautiful and well-worth the entrance fee. The place was huge and well-maintained and to be honest, it struck me as one of those places you’d go to if you were in desperate need of soul-searching. I was quite impressed. I felt as though I was leagues away from the metro when Manila was, in fact, just two hours away (without traffic, that is). Anywho.

I’m sorry for being MIA the past few months. School was getting to me and I had absolutely 0 time to write and if I did have time to write, I had no idea what to write about. (Yes, my life is that boring.) Good news is that I’ve finally graduated high school and am currently a ~free teen~. Also, may college na ako! After months and months of dreading the release of CET results, and dreading the possibility that I just might have to go on a gap year should I fail all of them, I’m happy to say that I finally know what university I’ll be studying in. Thinking about it still gives me the chills, because I still find it unbelievable - iska na ako. *cries en Español*

For the next six years I will be studying to become a doctor... for animals! And everyone who knows me knows that I love animals more than anything in the world. It’s the perfect degree program for me, and I’m looking forward to spending the next couple of years in Laguna, which just might be my new home. *cries again*

That’s all - even though the latter part of this post isn’t about Caleruega anymore, I hope you enjoyed this mini ~travel post~ and life update! Hehe.

P.S.: Peep my new blog theme! Hope you guys like it :-)

On Learning a New Language (+ tips & tricks!)

My fascination with languages began three years ago, in 10th grade. I was fifteen. It sprung up quickly; kind of like a patch of weeds amidst a garden filled with flowers. (This is dichotomy sucks, I know, but it’s the first thing that popped up in my mind and I really can’t think of anything else, try as I might - I’d rather everyone focus on how quickly weeds grow, anyways, and not on how weeds are almost always connoted negatively just because.)

I was enamored with Latin, a long-dead language now commonly spoken only by priests, linguists, teachers, and language enthusiasts. I honestly wished to learn it to the point of conversational proficiency; at the time, however, I believed that the only way I could do so was to find someone to teach me. I knew that I’d never be able to find someone who could do such a thing, and if I did find someone, I most likely wouldn’t have the means to pay for it. My parents wouldn’t be supportive of the idea, because what use would I have for a dead language that no one else within a hundred-mile radius could speak but I?

I could have just taught myself how to, I know, but it just never occurred to me at the time. For a while I familiarized myself with the language by reading adages and proverbs in Latin over and over again, with the likes of aere perennius, in vino veritas, alis volat propriis, and non omnis moriar stuck in my mind, ready to be uttered along with its English translation at a moment’s notice should anyone want to chat with me about the language. By the time Holy Week 2016 rolled around, I’d familiarized myself enough with the words and the sentence structure to understand the gist of the songs sung in Latin during Mass. I kinda lost interest soon enough, though, and started occupying myself with other hobbies - I still kind of ‘get’ Latin to this day, though, if you know what I mean.

Fast forward a few years, and I get the itch to start really learning a language after seeing people on Youtube successfully being able to speak foreign languages just by teaching themselves how to. It just so happened that during that span of time in my life I was genuinely feeling so mediocre about myself - I didn’t know how to play any instruments (I’d previously taught myself the piano, but there’s only so much you can teach yourself before having to need someone to guide you), I didn’t know any other languages but English or Filipino, I wasn’t in any school clubs (my old school used to be so academically-oriented, the only clubs we had were for sports and Senior High School students weren’t allowed to join JHS clubs like DebSoc, The Light, et cetera). In short, my life felt so... stagnant.

2017: year in review

I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I do know that it’s way too early to be posting this, given that we're only halfway through December and write-ups like this are usually done around the end of the month, amidst the yuletide cheers, but still. I’m at a point in my life wherein the fact that I’ll be 18 next year, in college and (finally) outta home is something that hasn’t dawned on me quite yet, consequently filling me with morbid and cathartic thoughts about adult life and the future in general. The latter of which has had me in a daze, because I am currently in a rut and stressing about what I’m going to pursue in the future. Now is the most awful time for this to be happening, because I’ve already applied and taken exams for all my choice colleges and my biggest fear is that I won’t pass any one of them and end up taking a gap year. (What’s crazy is that I keep on joking about taking a gap year to just unwind and get work experience, and now it just might happen - only that I don’t really want it to.)

I’m already rambling, I know, so without further ado:

I know this post probably won’t make up for my 10-month-long absence, but it’s a start. I won’t make any promises for next year because I’m afraid I won’t keep them - but trust me when I say I won’t leave this blog for dead. Though having not posted for months, it felt crazy seeing my follower count still go up as the days passed by, which was motivation enough to try and revive this blog. As this post comes to a close, I’ve only one thing to say: Cheers to the new year!

On Moving

I’ve been meaning to do this for a while now. I haven’t really had the time to do so, unfortunately, what with the endless onslaught of projects and schoolwork. Added the fact that my creative juices haven’t been working at all, causing writing to (heartbreakingly) be a pain. 

Anywho. Today’s post is all about me moving from this blog to another. Yes, you heard (read, rather) it right: I’ve moved to another blog. I’ve kept it a secret for weeks now, feeling guilty about having time to post daily on another blog all the while keeping this blog covered in cobwebs. I figured I owed everyone an explanation.

Before that, however, I’ll be listing down a few things that’ve happened in my life as of late - a brief update of sorts. (If anyone is actually interested.)

Yup. I’ve actively been blogging over there for a few weeks, now. It’s been pretty easy to manage, as my blog runs on queue when I’m asleep and when I’m in school and I only have to check it when I get home. I’ve been needing motivation for a long time now, school has been hell and I haven’t really been in my game for quite a while. Having a studyblr has helped me regain some of the motivation I used to have for school and schoolwork. It’s helped quite a lot; the community has been very welcoming and some of the resources various study blogs have put up there has helped me in terms of advancing up on a few topics in certain classes and understanding topics I haven’t mastered just yet.

MY STUDYBLR.

This isn’t to say that I’m leaving this blog. I certainly won’t be forgetting all 350+ of you - I’ll have a few posts up from time to time, but I’ll mostly be spending my time there rather than here. You can follow my new blog if you’d like, the link of which is stated above.

All the love, 

Janet

UST Paskuhan 2016 (December 16, 2016)

A life update of sorts, since nothing new has been up on the blog in forever. But yup, you heard (read, rather) it right - I attended this year’s Paskuhan in UST. The experience was commendable, given that it was my first time around the area, let alone the university itself. My friends and I were able to go ‘sightseeing’ both in and out of the campus - a few of them were already planning to study in the university come college, and it was a good way to familiarize themselves with the surroundings. (I personally have no idea, being that my first options include UP and Ateneo, but we’ll see what the future holds.)

It was one for the books. We ended up leaving at around 11:30PM, since we had to wait for a friend of ours at the Jollibee in España, and I eventually ended up getting home at more or less 2AM. (I blame the van ride.)

Halloween 2016

My family has always been one to celebrate Halloween - there hasn’t been a year wherein we haven’t gone out to go trick-or-treating in one of the nearby neighborhoods. This year was no different. However, I originally wasn’t going to go this year because I hadn’t the energy to and I wanted to relax because I was set to study virtually the whole day next day because finals were to start come Monday. I quickly changed my mind, though, when I realized that this may be one of the last Halloweens in my life. I’m old enough as it is, and maybe next year things have changed enough that I won’t really be able to go anymore.

This year we were to celebrate Halloween in one of the subdivisions near ours (since ours didn’t celebrate Halloween). Their Halloween event was set to commence on the 22nd of October, which is pretty early for Halloween, if you think about it. Prior to the trick-or-treating proper participants were ushered to the subdivision’s clubhouse and were fed; a buffet was present and thankfully we didn’t arrive too late to have missed it. A photobooth was also present, and my mom, siblings and I had pictures taken (for remembrance purposes, of course). At promptly 5:30PM the guests were told to pile into their cars; we did so and afterwards followed the guard who led us to the houses participating in the Halloween event. I didn’t get the chance to take pictures because it was too dark + we had to go down our cars and get candy as fast as we could and return so as not to stop the line of cars from proceeding. We were second in line, and there were about thirty cars all in all so we had to keep going.

It was fun, all in all, but it was way shorter than last year’s was and this year’s loot didn’t include as much imported chocolate compared to last year’s. (Sadly.)

Take a look under the cut for the pictures!