the peter pan syndrome... law school edition

after a week of work, a cookie christmas party reminded me of the love-hate relationship i used to have with law school. in a roomful of zuma, forgotten songs, old and new friends i felt like i did a few months ago when the biggest dilemma was where to go out for dinner.

it's tough in the adult world and thank God i have events like this to look forward to. i was home for christmas.

Song of the Day: You Can Fly (from Disney's Peter Pan)
Think of presents that you've bought
Any merry little thought
Think of sleigh bells, think of snow
Think of Christmas, here we go!

CRASH

rambling in a mall with a cup of DQ Banana Split Blizzard in my hands is not how i envisioned running into a quasi-rockstar (and then ask for an autograph) but it was how it happened (thank God I did not spill ice cream on him). and there are unexpected angels hanging around after the concert hence, this photo with the quasi-rockstar i crashed into...

Song of the Day: Don't You Forget About Me (by The Simple Minds)
Will you recognize me?
Call my name or walk on by
Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling
Down, down, down, down

He did recognize me... and I quote: "Now, we can get our picture taken. See, I remember you."
My response: "Sure beats the hell out of an autograph"

He's probably forgotten all about it by now but it's not everyday you run into a quasi-rockstar.

counting down

nine days and i will be flying over the pacific to a "faraway place" as pambie calls it and on my way to finding myself again. i will once again gaze at the works of the great masters and get "princessized."

i'm all set, my bags are packed and until then, i will be singing this song.

Song of the Day: Hold On (by Wilson Phillips...

but the Dan Band's performing in the video)

Yeah I know that there is pain

But you hold on for one more day and you

Break free, break from the chains

in an mmmbop they're gone...

tin (aka colby) was right... listening to our high school guilty pleasures playlist does take away the stress... it takes me back to the days when law school was just a dream and the biggest dilemma we had was to make it to becky's kitchen and back before 6PM so she could stick to her after-6 diet.

i miss the 100 peso club.
i miss stalking the cutest social studies department chair st. scho ever had.
i miss the quadrangle and miming.
i miss the time when MTV actually played music and didn't have reality shows.
i miss the time when text messaging was only for the deaf.
i miss the boybands (no matter how irritating their bouncing steps were).
i miss wholesome bubblegum pop.

ten years was a lifetime ago. but for the next ten years, whenever i'm down, all i have to do is listen to the guilty pleasures playlist and i know that laughter is not far behind.

Song of the Day: This Is Our Song (by the now defunct boyband Code Red)

When my skies are gray

Make them clear again

When I'm weak you are strong

I need to hear the sound

You need to hear the words

This is how we all began

This is our song

the ungettable get...

"Q" by the band Film... an unknown song from an unknown artist
yes, American Idol was a guilty pleasure up until they eliminated Michael Johns. But it's just the beginning of something better for him. Maybe there's something good out there for me too. Until I find it, I'll be singing this song...



When you feel as though they're gonna steal your pride
Don't ask whyIt's in your mind
I feel everything acessible is mine
It's like a hurricane in your soul
And you notice that the others say goodbye
Turn your eye and feel your own
'Cause there you go around and round and round and round
So she said I'll come around
Dreaming this is never found
Time is moving on
What I decide is better than
Memories fell to through my head
I am so alive
Where did all the days go when I dream?
My machine
And I feel
That everything in front of me is gone
It's like you feel the same when you're alone
And you know that I don't think that we should stay
Shift your eyes
Into his own
Cause there you'll go around and round and round and round

You've got to
Shout it out now
You come in my dreams and take me home

certified mama's boy next door

a song on a profile...

You taught me everything
And everything you've given me
I always keep it inside
You're the driving force in my life, yeah

There isn't anything
Or anyone that I can be
And it just wouldn't feel right
If I didn't have you by my side

You were there for me to love and care for me
When skies were grey
Whenever I was down
You were always there to comfort me
And no one else can be what you have been to me
You will always be you always will be the girl
In my life for all times

Mama, mama you know I love you
Oh you know I love you
Mama, mama you're the queen of my heart
Your love is like
Tears from the stars
Mama, I just want you to know
Lovin' you is like food to my soul

You're always down for me
Have always been around for me even when I was bad
You showed me right from my wrong
Yes you did

And you took up for me
When everyone was downin' me
You always did understand
You gave me strength to go on

There was so many times
Looking back when I was so afraid
And then you come to me
And say to me I can face anything
And no one else can do
What you have done for me
You'll always be
You will always be the girl in my life

Never gonna go a day without you
Fills me up just thinking about you
I'd never go a day without my mama

malakas ang pang-amoy ng mga kaibigan ko. i will tolerate a first wife, illegitimate children but not nightmare of a mother-in-law. i can never compete with that.

The iPod Dilemma

It's becoming a yearly event:

I am a child of the 90's... the age of the portable CD player, beepers, filofax and post-it notes.

But like everyone else, I have allowed myself to sail with the tides of time. The beeper and the filofax have been rendered obsolete by the PDA phone... post-it notes to friends are now in the form of text messages. Pretty notebooks used as journals are now in the form of blogs. The walkman and portable CD player have been replaced by the MP3 player and of course, the i-Pod... which is the source of my panic right now.

I cannot study without music. My i-Pod and MP3 player, sadly, have replaced the volumes of journals that I have kept for the past ten years. I have chosen to express my feelings through the playlists. I have a playlist for Monday mornings, for the angry girl, for the broken hearted, for reminiscing, for studying and a playlist to listen to when I've had a bad day. Lending my i-Pod or MP3 player to someone would be like letting him or her read my journals-- minus the gory details of course. But the music would give him or her a feel of what my life is like.

So what happened? I was peacefully reading up on attorney-client privilege for my 7pm class when the computer flashes a message that an update is available for iTunes. Gullible as I was, I downloaded the update. So the download's done and it asks me to update my iPod. You can yell at me for not reading the instructions and simply clicking "YES" (stupid really). I did update the iPod and the next thing I know, the playlists... the songs... they were gone. My other form of journals- deleted just like that. Jeff Buckley, U2, Tonic and the other musicians who tell their stories along with mine poofed away with the click of the mouse button.

Yes, it's pathetic, I'm grieving the loss of songs which I can restore with the same click of the mouse that deleted them. But still... it's like cleaning your room and throwing out the dried up flowers that you so carefully kept between each page of your journal. People feel sentimental about dried petals and I feel the same about songs.

I feel a little weird because it's literally starting out with a clean slate... or player in this case. I can't help but feel a little sentimental because I erased my form of journal entries but then again, it's exciting in a good way, like starting a new school term or trying on new shoes...because I can start over-- with nothing holding me back (i.e. the warning that I've got only 556MB free space).

I believe things happen for a reason. I admit, the main reason for this deletion of songs is my stupidity but then, looking at it from another angle, maybe it's time to make way for something new. Leave my past behind and start looking forward to the future.

Just for laughs

Para naman wag naming makalimutang tumawa...

Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Home by Paul Young


Don't Look Back In Anger by Oasis


And the finale, the mother of all karaoke for the deaf videos... Torn by Natalie Imbruglia

equally cursed and blessed

If all you've got to do today is find peace of mind
Come 'round, you can take a piece of mine...

I admire how musicians can come up with creative and catchy album titles. I could always relate to the songs, but rarely with the album titles. So you could imagine how I felt when I was organizing my iPod and saw the Catatonia album title "Equally Cursed and Blessed."

And if all you've got to do today is hesitate
Come here, you could leave it late with me...

I am unfortunate enough to be very punctual and excited when it came to enrollment so along with my friends, I was placed in the regular section of the 4th year-- 4S. At the start of the semester, we tried to think that maybe this was a blessing in disguise. We were forced to study since everyone around us seemed to excel academically and we had to keep up. Nakakahiya pag ikaw lang ang bokya. So we thought, we were lucky. And we had the presumption of regularity working in our favor.

You could be taking it easy on yourself
You should be making it easy on yourself...

Then, the second semester came crashing down on us. We were the only section to have recitations for RemRev... oh, closed books, no notes, just our smiles (to quote Sir Pabs). That was only on Mondays and Tuesdays. Wednesdays and Thursdays it was Commercial Law Review (with recitations) handled by Dean Sundiang-- one of the best professors and yet, the most feared. On Saturdays, we had Tax and Conflicts of Law... both with quizzes and recitations. Most of the normal people in 4S (us) looked at Friday as a day of rest. Fridays were seen as the sign that God did not hate us. We thought wrong.

Cause you and I know it's all over the front page
You give me road rage, racing through the best days
It's up to you, boy, you're driving me crazy
Thinking you may be losing your mind

Last night, Judge Albano announced that he needed some kind of basis for our grades and that we would have a quiz in Civil Law Review every Friday. Goodbye, rest day. God cast us out of Heaven (our beloved Law Lecture Room) and into the deepest and darkest circle of Hell.

Space age, road rage, fast lane...

I am blessed to be with good friends during these trying times and that they're going through this with me (not like they have any choice, 4S din sila). But I feel cursed since I am deprived of the much needed rest and time to unwind. I spend my mornings in the library instead of sleeping in, I spend my evenings reading books while blowing my nose and trying to get well from some sort of flu without resorting to sleep.

I try to look at the bright side: at least, by the time I take the bar, I'll be fully prepared since I'm forced to study. That is if I graduate this year... assuming I'll still be alive and functional next week.

So until March, I'll be singing my bad day, angry girl song from the Catatonia album.

We all live in the space age, coming down with road rage,
Racing through the best days...

Sabi nga ni Claire: Ayokong makakarinig ng 4B, 4C at 4D na nagsasabing nahihirapan sila sa buhay nila.

Sweetly Terrifying

I've never thought that the Carpenters could ever come up with a terrifying song.

Being the sentimental person that I am (to the point of sappiness), I've always found the song sweet. Until I watched 1408. You've got to see the movie to understand the terror. After seeing the movie, I actually reflected on the song. Yes, that's me, overanalyzing things.

Even without seeing 1408, "We've Only Just Begun" is a scary song. It speaks of a new journey, doing something you've never done before and it's far from over. It speaks of an end of something to make way for a beginning. And endings are always terrifying because you don't know how things will turn out.

Over the deteriorating quality of coffee at Barcelo, Pambie, Claire and I were talking about losing our passion for the law. We were all struggling to come up with ways to regain that passion and this is the part where I say I strongly disagree with Aristotle when he said that "The law is reason freed from passion." To go through what law students go through every day of their lives, to do what lawyers do, you need passion. You need to be so committed to whatever you're doing to be able to go on. And knowing that this is just the beginning and we're losing our passion... the thought scares the bejesus out of me. At this rate I'm going, I'll never survive.

It took a horror movie to snap me out of la-la land where the last year of law school isn't what I thought it would be. A horror movie and a Carpenters song.

And yes, we've just begun...

The Sound of My Childhood

The hills are alive with the sound of music

With songs they have sung for a thousand years

The hills fill my heart with the sound of music

My heart wants to sing every song it hears

I was supposed to be studying yesterday but then, for some reason, I ended up watching The Sound of Music. I've seen the movie a thousand times since I was four but for some reason (most likely PMS), it felt like I was watching it for the first time. I felt the anticipation during the prelude, and I sang along when Julie Andrews was twirling on the mountain singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." I wanted to twirl along but then again, to see a 25-year-old twirling around her room singing "The Sound of Music" at the top of her lungs... something's not quite right. If I murdered someone, I'd probably be exempt due to insanity.

When I was four or five, I loved The Sound of Music. Every morning, I would put on the vinyl on the record player and prance around our living room, singing along to "I Am Sixteen," jumping across chairs, mimicking the scene with Liesl and Rolfe .

My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds

that rise from the lake to the trees

My heart wants to sigh like a chime that flies

from a church on a breeze

To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls overstones on its way

To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray

When I turned eight, it was Annie. I sang "Tomorrow" with a vengeance (I still do). I cleared out my toys singing "It's a Hard Knock Life" and when I was alone, I would hum "Maybe" to myself. As I grew up, I turned to the musicals with more mature themes... Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. I remember being twelve and singing "I Dreamed a Dream" and "I'd Give My Life for You" with my cousin, trying so hard to reach the high notes.

I guess I lost touch with my "Broadway" persona as I grew up. I was introduced to pop, rock and everything in between so I stashed away all the records, tapes and cds of the musicals but yesterday, you could say I listened to the child within. I actually cried when the children were singing for the Baroness and the Captain joined in.

Now I know what will calm me down after a storm... literally and figuratively. Some people go to a bar to wash out their weariness with a couple of drinks. Some go home, sit on a comfortable chair and listen to Puccini. Some play sports. I have an easier solution (for me at least). All I have to do is put on "The Sound of Music" and twirl around the house, jump from chair to chair, singing along with Maria and the rest of the Von Trapp family. And when I get tired of all the dancing, I just have to sit down and sing along to "Maybe" from Annie.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely

I know I will hear what I've heard before

My heart will be blessed with the sound of music

And I'll sing once more

An Exorcism

You cannot quit me so quickly

There's no hope in you for me

I am supposed to be studying, now that the sun has gone down but instead, I unconsciously resurrect a ghost from the past-- you.

I have been haunted by ghosts before and I've banished them into oblivion by burying myself in work, any kind of work. I obsess about something else until they go away on their own. Out of sight, out of mind. Somehow, it doesn't work this time. Running away isn't the solution. Ghosts, they say, have unfinished business. So maybe I need to tell your ghost how I really feel, to let out the words that were never said at the right moment. I think it's high time we finish this now...

We waste the hours with talking

These twisted games we play

We're strange allies with warring hearts

What a wild-eyed beast you'd be

I loved you, though I doubt you realized what was going on... you tend to be stupid sometimes you know. Really insensitive too. I tried to change for you, thought of you as my good luck charm because ever since I met you, everything seemed to go my way. And when you left, things went haywire.

I don't think you would ever know how much you meant to me even if I printed it on a giant billboard and put it up along EDSA. You'd probably shrug it off or smile then drive away.

I just had to let go. I knew we weren't going anywhere-- that this constant thumping of my heart was pointless. You don't hear it anyway. And it was too much for me. I exerted all this effort and you barely even noticed. All you did was to take advantage of the fact that I would do almost anything for you.

Look at us spinning off in the madness of a roller coaster

You know you went off like a devil in church

In the middle of a crowded room

All we can do my love

Is hope we don't take this ship down

Now, as I try to study, I remember how giddy I used to feel whenever you were around... how I used to take the time to fix my hair, pick out my clothes just to make myself prettier for you. I felt I was never good enough for you. With every page I read, I remember the moment we were in the same room, trying to decipher the same paragraphs of the same cases. How you sat on my chair, held my book, gave me a sheet of paper, borrowed my pen, smiled at me... but now, it's time to let it all go. It's all in the past.

The space between the bullets in our firefight

Is where I'll be hiding waiting for you...

The space between our wicked lies

Is where we hope to keep safe from pain

I tried letting you go before. Every time I try, you seem to find a way to weasel your way back into my heart. Of course, the pushover that I was (and still am sometimes), I let you in. I fall for the little tricks and you just walk back into my life... literally. I tested that out-of-sight, out-of-mind theory and I suddenly run into you everywhere I go.

I promised myself once that I would let it go when I'm ready, and that I would be happy without you. You're certainly happy without me. I was perfectly okay for the twenty one years prior to meeting you. I'm sure I'll be okay again. I made it through worse things. And I will make it through this- scratched, bruised, beat but not beaten. And definitely alive.

Now that I've said everything I want to say, I guess I can go back to studying. Maybe there's no particular way to exorcise you, no magic spells, no prayers but I'm sure of one thing, I got rid of the unfinished business. I have to turn my attention back to the books now and hopefully, I won't see your face on its pages.

The space between your heart and mine
Is the space we'll fill with time

You know what... I'm rambling. I never rambled before I met you. I just thought I should let you know.

You move in slow degrees, a sudden memory

You're a Leonard Cohen song

But every now and then I'd swear I'd see you standing

On a sidewalk, in a restaurant

From a taxi passing by...

-Under You (Better Than Ezra)