Last year of College: Loyola Mountaineers and my Mom

Good Lord... How did I get here?

The fact that I am actually called a senior and yet everything still seems to run at the same pace is concerning. Often times, I find myself doing things and then stopping to remind myself that this would be the last chance I'd ever have at trying to do something like this...

Real life is just around the corner...

Fuuuuuck...

I'd be more energetic in my cries of despair if I weren't so tired from my last 6km practice run for LM. Something I have neglected to update you guys on for some time now.

Yeah. This year, I've set myself up to have a meaningful last year. Actually, this year seems to be all about my LM (Loyola Mountaineers) application. Yes. LM application. I've been trying to get into that org for 2 years now but I've always discontinued application or quit open climbs because of several reasons. The first was plain physical fitness. Joining LM means being super fit and takes a lot of time and effort to train. The first time I tried a 6km run was during the actual test itself on my second year. Before that I had never run so far in my life. By the time I finished, I was just concentrating all my efforts in trying not to shit my pants. That's why for this year's application I've invested a lot of time and energy for training and I like to think that I'm doing pretty good for myself.

Click this to see my last run!

The second reason was the steep requirements that LM has for membership. Aside from being physically fit and mentally prepared, I need to have a lot of weekends sacrificed for LM activities. This was problematic because of the NSTP and JEEP requirements for 2nd and 3rd year. Those were uncuttable which meant that LM had to be dropped.

The second and without a doubt the most fearsome opponent to my application is my own mother. Woohoo! Lord knows that she and I have gone through many and episode and joining LM was just one of many things we did not agree with. I remember just a month ago at dinner, I was talking to my sister Toni about how I was applying to Loyola Mountaineers. Then she asks me if I even asked permission from my mom first. Puzzled, I told her that I didn't need to ask permission because she let me join when I was second year. Then she tells me that I should have asked first. Then I repeat what I told her and explain to her that I really didn't need to ask permission. Looking for approval from my mom, I turned my head to find her giving me a look that probably went like, "You better get what I mean already or I will drive my thumbs into your eyes!!!". As charming and endearing as I am I still proceed and tell her that I'm going to join Loyola Mountaineers. Then she goes, "Why don't you like to listen to me?"

And then I'm like this.

And she asked me that without even saying anything... Mothers...

Anyways, I am so fuckin' determined, I'm gonna push through anyway. One way or another, I'm gonna get there baby and there's nothing that's gonna stop me!

I've already been training for weeks now and I've made the 6km within the specified time limits multiple times. I'm gonna hit even bigger challenges when I start figuring out ways to tell my mom that I'll be gone for some weekends to go to the mountains. Wish me luck!

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield

Changing my Life, Mom and Facebook, Dad and Horses, Japan and the Wrath of Phuket Thailand

I have two papers due tomorrow. A Lit poem analysis of the draft and the final version of Amaryllis by Ellen Bryant Voigt AND the draft for my reflection paper. I first imagined a reflection paper to be just a blogpost on paper. Guess I was wrong. Maybe it's the topic that makes it hard. "The moment in my life that affected me the most" or some sort of thing like that. I like to think that my life was not solely influenced by a single event. I guess I'm a work in progress. Every little thing that happens to me changes me a little. Some more than others.

 Enough of that shit.

Yeah. I'm just bumming. Finals week's coming up. Got a couple of long tests for this week too. A documentary for Fil to work on. There's also the lit play I helped write. Which I should mention is very very sweet. Not sweet awesome. Just sickeningly sweet. Damn my Eng/Lit block's love for sweet stories. We should have done something like Young Man in a Jeepney by Merlie Alunon. It's this poem about some cougar who savors the ass heat of a strapping young man who just got off the jeep. Bel was on fire during the analysis of that one.

What else... I haven't posted pics of Dark Shore yet. I feel like it's getting to be old news. And we need to perform more. Which reminds me. Recently, I've been feeling like a 90's teenage girl. Sort of like Debbie from the Wild Thornberries. My mom took to the habit of using Facebook. I have to say, back then, I thought  that those 90's teens who complained about how nosy they parents were especially when they were "keeping up with the times" were whiny bitches. Now I myself have become a whiny bitch. She's filled my computer with hundreds of copies of photos because she messed up copy-pasting them into another folder. She's tagged herself AND HER FRIEND on my super vain profile pic of me with a guitar (oh the visuality).

I do wish though, if she were to use a computer, that she learn how to use one properly. Or at least not leave so much shit lying around. Haha. I know, I'm asking for a beating. Maybe part of me is very confident that she will never see this blog (because she doesn't know how or she doesn't know what a blog is...teehee) or I'm still being a whiny teenage girl from the 90's.

In that sense, I admire my dad. So steady. So not reliant on computers. He will not appreciate anything that isn't either, delicious to eat, something related to horses, or business. For those of you who are wondering, my dad owns horses. They aren't magical. They don't eat light and shit rainbows. They don't fly. They're pretty neat like big dogs. And like dogs they bite. My dad got bit by one, right on the boob. It was purple for a while. Sounds quite funny, but it's only really a little funny.

And since everyone got in on the bandwagon and they're pretty close to getting out, I'll join in! Japan and the Earthquake.

I heard about it first from my dad who asked if my Tita living in Japan lived near Tokyo. I remember them staying somewhere else like Osaka so I thought that they would be pretty okay. The reality of the thing didn't sink in 'til much later. I saw footage of the tsunami on CNN and it looked like water sweeping up some diorama. Like if you stuck your AP (that's social studies to you) project into a canal during heavy rain. I couldn't help but think of Godzilla coming out of the water. (Yeah, I'm a terrible person) Anyways, we didn't get any word about whether they were safe or not until the wee hours in the morning when my mom managed to call them when communication was restored in Japan. (We should have used the internet instead, people managed to Tweet in spite of the shit happening around them) It turns out that they were okay. They lived about a 2 hour drive from the epicenter and only their figurines broke. My cousin and her dad got home at about 3 am already but they were safe.

With this event came a surge of posts, stats and other things in support for Japan. Of course, I doubt the authenticity of those posts. Clicking a like page isn't going to save anyone unless there's some sort of money involved and of course prayers help (I'm taking this with a MOUNTAIN of SALT) ONLY if you do something about it after. But at least the word is getting out.

Those damn cutesy Koreans...

Just last night, my grandma was getting into somewhat of a heated argument. It wasn't really an argument. She just kept talking about the nuclear power plant exploding. I found what she said hard to believe. Not because I don't believe in explosions. It's cause my grandma, bless her heart, misquotes and summarizes stories so erroneously some times. She just kept talking about how they evacuated the people 60 km and that 4 people died. So, I watched the news with her to check. As I was listening though she kept going, "YOU SEE!" when it had nothing to do with 4 people dying or something about 60 km. Oh grandma...

After which she mentioned how  people on the radio were talking about how Japan had this coming because of:

A. Some Tower of Babel analogy

~OR~

B. The atrocities committed during the Second World War

If you've read my previous post about how I'm an atheist. You might be able to imagine how I reacted to the first. I'm not gonna dwell on that. I just have to say, if you sincerely believe that. I believe you are Amish and I laugh at your fear of light bulbs.(Insensitive cartoon stereotype)

The second point also ticked me off. I'm not gonna even explain why. I mean c'mon. Who seriously believes that? It reminds me of the other Tsunami that hit Phuket, Thailand some time ago. My AP (that's still social studies to you) teacher mentioned that he didn't necessarily believe that it was the wrath of God. But it made you think...Phuket...Phuket... Puke...

Are you phuking kidding me, sir?