How much of me am I willing to reveal? How much do you want me to?

Once upon a time there was a girl who grew up too fast.

While her grade school classmates were playing pranks on each other,
her biggest problem was how to get a medal come recognition day so
she could make her parents proud. While her friends were using the
payphone to call up their sundo, she was calling her mom to give her
some tips on how to win an extemporaneous speaking contest.

When she became mayor of their high school student government, she
somehow knew and had to admit to herself that she was being more
unreasonable and more strict than the guidance counselor for not
letting in the campus a student who wore a spaghetti strap to the
school’s acquaintance party.

And she’s an only child.

The downpour during that UPCAT weekend seemed to join her as she
cried in the backseat of their car for leaving blank four questions
she did not know how to answer. For six months after the UPCAT, her
father believed she did not pass the exam. But she did. She had never
seen her father so happy.

Graduation Day. She could’ve sworn her medals weighed at least two
kilos. She had more medals than the valedictorian and the
salutatorian. And she’s just a fourth honorable mention. She felt
that despite everything, she knew she failed her dad’s expectations
of her.

She entered UP Diliman with every expectation that she could just be
like her first love. He was a UPLB University Scholar. Why couldn’t
she? He only came to as high as being the 3rd District Junior Board
Member and San Pablo City Junior Mayor. She went on to become
Laguna’s Junior Vice Governor.

GWA: 1.8. No. She wouldn’t be joining her blockmates even on the
College Scholar list. And even after having a 1.5 GWA the next sem,
her total GWA for the two sems weren’t even enough to provide her a
slot in Broadcast Communication. She’s stuck in Speech Communication.
Not that she’s complaining. The course was the mother of all
communication courses. But again, she knew her father was once again
disappointed.

A fellow UPCAT passer from her high school inquired if the rumors
were true that she was pregnant. She was flabbergasted. God she
didn’t even have a boyfriend! She broke up with her last boyfriend
for two-timing her with someone who’s more than willing to have sex
with him. She won’t let her batchmates’ snide remarks pull her down.

Her first college family was Chalk Magazine. She was an Official
Student Correspondent for UP Diliman. Chalk Magazine. ABS-CBN. The
name was enough for connections to start springing from everywhere.
That was her stepping stone to everything she became in the next
three years of her college life.

She loved the limelight. Until the limelight closed its doors on her.

For four months her family suffered bankruptcy. And to think she’s an
only child. There were no other mouths to feed. Her parents refused
to have their house in Laguna rented out. They thought occupants
would just ruin the place. Case closed. But how were they going to be
able to pay for their apartment in Ortigas? Her father’s boss just
lost the elections and her father was left without a stable job.
Though she trusted her father’s ability to make the best out of the
worst (he was an orphan with ten siblings and he managed to send
himself and some of his siblings to school - a reason why this
author wouldn’t give alms to nine-year old beggars) since he still
had his freelance job as a trusted senior media correspondent for
Manila Bulletin, it still didn’t follow how he would be able to pay
for their rent, their electric and phone bills, gas, drinking water,
water supply, repair of their computer, television and refrigerator,
and send her to school.

She was bored. But she had summer classes from 7 AM to 11:30 AM and a
summer job at Speechpower from 1 PM to 8:30 PM in España. And she had
her karaoke, rather, her family’s karaoke inside her room to stir her
to sleep.

They were able to get by. One day at a time. She didn’t know how her
father managed to pull it off but eventually things came back to
normal. First the refrigerator, then a new television for her mom,
the old television repaired, a second hand computer that was
eventually replaced by a new one….Things really did came back to
normal….or so she thought.

A year after, friends and business clients inquired why her mom
suddenly looked so frail and weak. She mentioned that her mom went
through so much. But that she’s just not the type who would go out
with friends.

And yes. The limelight indeed closed its doors on her. The spotlight
was on her mom. Inside the CT Scan. And then inside the MRI tunnel.
The tears just kep’t on falling. She didn’t want to look at her dad
who was just in one corner of Medical City, a very expensive hospital
but the nearest from their apartment, his head bowed. She didn’t want
to know if his head was bowed because he was just tired and without
sleep or if he was thinking where he would get the money to pay for
the bills just so my mom would get well…No he was not thinking of
the bills…he was thinking of his wife. The girl saw from her very
own eyes how worried he was, how he didn’t think when he instructed
the cab driver to take them to Medical City, again, a very expensive
hospital where an overnight stay in the ER would cost someone a
whopping P10,000 already. The girl saw her father’s genuine concern
and love. Yes, love. Despite having the frailties of an ordinary
married man who was without a child for the first 13 years of his
marriage to a woman who’s five years older than him. But that was
another story.

It was a baptism of fire. The girl didn’t know what dementia means.
Her brain just wouldn’t accept a single word that the snooty
neurologist was saying about how her mom’s brain was decreasing in
size because of the series of small strokes that she had unnoticeably
suffered the past two years….

Two years…that included those four months of bankruptcy…She had
only cared for herself during that time…She had only cared how she
could escape boredom so most of her 24 hours were spent outside their
gloomy apartment…Where her mom stayed, patiently waiting for their
arrival from work and school…

All of a sudden, her father was telling her things that implied
responsibility - responsibility that she knew she really wasn’t
prepared for no matter how tough her facade seemed to look like.
Things came too fast. But what could she do? Her father depended on
her to help him.

Sometimes, okay, most of the time, she’s guilty of taking it all out
on her mom. But she’s breaking deep inside and almost always ready to
fight it out with anyone who would insult her mom and call her
mom "matandang ulyanin". She almost always ready to preach to anyone
that sufferers of dementia are not insane.

And though in law school the Civil Code mentioned dementia as under
insanity, she’s still ready to fight for her mom.

Why is she in law school? For her dad..Again once upon a time she
also dreamt of becoming a lawyer. Even her high school yearbook
described her as someone who would eventually become a lawyer-
broadcast journalist someday.

But then a few months into the UP Law Aptitude Exam (LAE), she bailed
out. She knew she had a career in media. Hell she was already in ABS-
CBN. Law school’s a jealous mistress. And media as partner just
wouldn’t do. Furthermore, she knew it was no more than a childhood
dream to fantasize about becoming a femme fatale in power clothes
with powerful, intimidating words in court.

Then again her dad, during those last two weeks before the exam,
asked her to take the exam; that he would pay for her review if he
had to; that he would support her all the way to law school. She knew
both her parents were frustrated lawyers. Stricken by poverty, they
knew they had to drop the legal and regal dream. Her father even
warned her, many times over, that if she wanted to finish law school,
she should not get married until she becomes a lawyer (he was already
married to her mom when he took his first year, first semester at
MLQU…for financial reasons, he had to drop out).

She doesn’t believe in fate but it seems to keep on intervening. Last
two weeks. How the hell was she going to review for the LAE? All of
the posters advertising LAE were already through with their reviews.
She was ready to give up when she tried the very last poster. A one-
day review with a three-inch thick reading and practice materials.
She brushed up on her philosophy and math. She literally read the
dictionary. All of it. She did with hopes of not failing her father
again. She took the LAE with thought of not disappointing him again.
Not ever again.

When she passed, her father’s lawyer colleague who graduated from UP
Law told her father that it must be fate. Think: "Many are called.
But few are chosen."

Like many of those law students with her, she knew she had a lot to
give up. She started college life with dreams of entering the world
of mediated communications. In law school, she just had to accept the
lifestyle of non-mediated communications.

While her fresh graduate batchmates were slowly inching their way up
to becoming a broadcast journalist and television and radio
commentators, she was working in call center, a job she used to
detest but eventually learned how to sincerely appreciate and love
especially when she knew it was one of those that permitted her to
nurture her law studies. Surely, the media was not one of it.

She was eventually shoved into the world of politics - an
omnipresent entity in her life that more than anything else, she
absolutely abhorred. When her father lost the elections for a local
post in 1998, people were still lining and piling outside their gate
asking for money, screaming that they voted for her father. But what
could she do? Like the call center industry, it permitted her to
study law.

This is my story. I want to share this to you because I know more
than anything else, I owe it to myself that by writing this, I could
fortify my justifications for staying in UP law. I may not know yet
what really is my reason for becoming a lawyer, and yes I may be
already burnt out, but definitely there is an existing reason why I’m
not bailing out. I’m gonna stay with you guys until we graduate in
2010, all the way until we take the bar and become lawyers. I also
hope I could inspire those who are thinking of leaving to stay. Yes
you have your reasons. I respect that. But maybe there’s a chance.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 15th, 2005 at 4:04 am and is filed under Law School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.