It is near 7 pm (my class starts at 6:30), and I am stuck in an unmoving line to the jeepney. This now is my first horrendous experience of Manila rain, plaguing this old city and making practically everyone wet and hot(-tempered).
I am writing this now in my scratch paper. I think it best to do something that relaxes, not dwell on something that stresses. After all, I miss writing.
Since I started law school, I barely had time to pause. Life for me now consists of constant running around, trying to accomplish everything all at once. I have doubts on whether I can maintain this work-school life—but necessity compels one to do what one must. I am doing what I must.
Some have already dropped a subject; others totally withdrew. Those working resorted to resigning. I did neither, though at times envy comes to me. I motivated myself never to give up, no, not in this one. Not to give up, even when hope is gone. This is my resolve now.
Now, I am seating in front of the jeepney, scribbling in the absence of reasonable light, with the thin cloth barely shielding me from the fury of the rain. I am still scribbling, fighting the ill temper yet to succumb my being.
It is now 7:40 (my class ends at 7:30). I arrived at the campus running, terribly hoping I could still plead to the Dom to recognize my attendance. Surely, a monk would hear my pleas. There was no class, but a mass with attendance. There was no class even after that. Never had I been so frustrated that there are no classes. Waiting on traffic, falling on lines, braving the rain and the flood, all for a stroke of my name on a paper? Truly unrewarding.
It is 9:17. I have been waiting for 40 minutes already, again on an unmoving line, festered by hunger. I am still holding this folded scratch paper, not bothering to use an umbrella to protect me from the dripping rain. My hands can only hold this pen and paper.
I am thinking of how life had been so hard to me, and how so many people do not know it and do not know why. I am thinking of how I survived the blows and the recurring pain. Here I am now standing, not a bit comfortable. But I am writing. I am ignoring. I am at the beginning, my beginning.
It is 9:48 pm. I have reached home. I have reached my destiny.
