Monday Breakage

This morning, I asked my husband about an issue I have been dealing with for a case. He did not agree with my way forward, telling me that I had to pivot. A crack appeared in my conscious mind, and drips of defensiveness started coming. It was a short exchange, but I ended in tears while also acknowledging his point. I would like to think I have little pride, but I have a lot of shame and insecurity. So, it was me admitting my misstep, then fully panicking at how to hit reverse on weekend strategies I had backed myself into.

It's been three hours. I did a bit of housekeeping and gardening, and the broken pieces are nearly picked up, ready to be joined. I have been listening to a bit of news and some knowledge pieces to get my brain to where it needs to arrive at so I can do some meaningful work. This is just brief documentation.

Things Begin

 It's time to be brave. Or foolhardy. They look alike. Let's tell ourself that it's the right one we're going for. 

The First Few

 It has been a little over 2 weeks since I had been formally admitted to the Bar. I had my moment of tears during the oath-taking and roll signing. It was refreshing, since most people in the convention hall had gone through a similar milestone. The parents, family, and friends were all given a separate room. This achieved an effect that all the people in the room we were in understood how much hard work had to be done to get to where we were.

Review Starts Again

 Getting a little bit more apprehensive. The grind begins. 

Starting Scared (and Scarred)

 I have been having some feelings circling through as the deadlines for the applications approach. I have been busying myself with so many things, but then again, I have also been fussing about the requirements for the exams.

Good Morning for a Good Cry

I don't quite have an acute reason for tears, but it was nice to sob a little today. It's been getting to me for some time, the work, I mean.

Polishing for Purpose

I am working towards a goal, with no other goals in mind for afterwards. I have been working at this goal since my college years. It has taken pauses, but ultimately, it has always been the goal. As a young person, it was so definite and easy, but not so much anymore. I perhaps need a little bit more glimmer for my lighthouse. 

Distress and Habit

 We are now more than 200 days on quarantine, and the markers do not seem better for my country. Whereas the world is slowly taking precaution to keep their numbers down, the Philippines still has extremely high numbers on record.

I have been home for the most part, as my routine has allowed me to do so. The semester in law school promotes a sort of obnoxiousness. Our kind worry about internet, reading, and getting enough rest for another day's work. The busyness of school takes precedence over many previous thoughts and activities. For instance, I will miss playing with the toddler in our house, because now, my schedule has been filled up, facing the computer for most of the day.

Some habits that have been helpful to me so that I could keep going include having a series on the background so that I could keep brief intervals between activities. I keep the curtains open to help me get up in the morning and to help me keep my sense of time (and sometimes the weather). I would love to get some more reading done (non-school reading, that is). I have deactivated notifications on most of my applications and check only when I can.

The distress these past months have definitely put me in cycles of sadness, and I have learned to pick out content that I consume more and more. For the first few months of the quarantine, I have refrained from interacting with more people than I am actually used to speaking with. There are still plenty of people to speak with, I find; however, I have had more meaningful, brief talks.

This is life now. I wonder how much longer the country will be this way. The injustice is palpable. I wonder what I can do in my mere sphere.

Three Days, Three Room Arrangements

I am notorious for re-arranging items in my room now and again. These past week has been about enlistment for classes and doing my work online. While waiting, I have been cleaning and arranging things in my room. Aside from being a function of having limited space, and there being lots of books in boxes, I clean out and re-arrange as often as I can so that I can work off tension.

This is the age of working and studying from home. There needs to be space enough for rest and work. There needs to be enough flexibility but also distinction between different activities. There needs to be enough indoor and outdoor.

I have this inner unrest, and my self-confidence is still low. School days are really upon us.

Now then, time to breathe.

170 Days on Community Quarantine

It has been over a year since my last post. Let me remind myself again that this blog is for taking things a day at a time. Today, I had to attend to some matters for school and work (which has been my routine for the past few years). I have perhaps had to adjust better to house work as well. 

In the past year, I had to move to a new place, and just in time before the major complication for absolutely everyone in the word.

It is the year 2020. Calamities abound. At the beginning of the year, a new Corona Virus was found: COVID-19. There was a volcanic eruption. Cases of the virus began to rise all over the world. Economic turmoil has affected many nations. Extra-judicial killings in the Philippines continue. The Anti-Terror Law is passed.

This has weighed down my heart for the past year. These past months have stretched out my human capacity for physical strength and emotional resolve.

The height of my anxiety over the present circumstances that I have been processing is alike to when I prepare for exams at school. The constant stress, therefore, I believe eats up all the attention and strength that I could muster.

The deep moments of joy come from above and beyond me. Every week, despite the shifting circumstances, the church has been holding worship services. It is a natural break for me, and whatever productivity or unproductivity I may have incurred for the past week is set aside for rest. It is a gift. While it is also my job, it marks the rest during my week.

Things have changed, aside from the year turning. It has pointed to some fundamental, indispensable things. Things that are missed when they are away. I miss the afternoon walk for errands. I miss the ride to school with casual conversations with the driver and other passengers. I miss seeing faces. People having to be apart for long has taken its toll. Everything - school, work, home - continues, except for the community being virtual. It's not the same. During the quarantine, we celebrated a few birthdays. Being away from people I wanted to celebrate has made these celebrations a little bit melancholic. 

I don't thinkit will be over soon, at least not for my country. And so, because it is hard to think of good memories for the future, I have been keeping my a visual diary of mundane treasures from my daily activities. Perhaps when I look back after another year or so, the hodgepodge I will find will look understandably dull, but still hopefully fulfilling.

2019. Day 215.

Today marks the first day of classes for my third year as a law student. Blogging has been out of rotation among my activities. I have kept a few other blogs from when it was a thing. This, I now revisit as a public publishing of my daily thoughts. Aside from this, let's call it grammar practice. On my planner, I only scribble out phrases for the events of the day.

We met our professor in Corporation Law this morning. Thankfully, one of my classmates was able to gather that the class will be held despite a memo being issued that the first day of classes will begin on Monday. The professor wanted to get the orientation done as soon as possible, so that the business of studying could begin.

I and a group of friends had a good long breakfast together. There was no champorado, so I had to resort to other rainy day favorites: monggo soup and calcag rice (fried rice with stir-fried shrimp). I went for personal and work errands after breakfast.

The weather was gloomy and rainy, so even with carrying 2 heavy bags, by the end of the morning, I felt less exhausted. I dropped to sleep in the afternoon before resuming some evening cleaning and preparations for tomorrow. I managed to check on a few things that I can de-stash -- as a project that a friend of mine seems worthy to me. Mostly, I have to part with bags. I have yet to settle whether it would be wise to part with books. I will think about it further.

Testing of Faith

In college it was not a question of having time. It was more about asking the right questions because one really knows so little. At the time I really read to learn and grow. These days it's taking notice of things that had been there. It's forming clouds of related thoughts.
On Easter morning, I did not do an Easter related Bible reading for my personal time. I read from Genesis and Judges. From Genesis, the account of Jacob's first vision in the desert (Luz) when he was seeking the native home of his mother. His faith was conditional: if you will be with me, you will be my Lord. From Judges, a short summary of the first four judges in the history of Israel. Their call was for leadership in conquest and customary obedience to God's ways. The faith of Israelites who had not been tested in battle is the subject for the coming period: obedience to the instruction of God comes with deliverance and victory.
To me, it seems shallower than what faith has come to mean: to hope in something you cannot grasp. Both examples of faith seem like a transaction of good will. Christians today still hold God to a standard of trust too. However, faith today is sure because of good will: that indeed our sins are forgiven on the basis of Christ's obedience and triumph on the cross.
I must admit that even though I should want for nothing, I feel I still bargain my obedience for rewards. Perhaps it's the fact that eternal life doesn't seem here and now. Daily living just seems so important because it's today.
Test my faith, Lord, but not for the worth I feel it would bring. Your will alone be done.

Weekend Wrap-up

I had just come from facilitating for a small group of students. Two weeks with students is a short span of time to really develop a comprehensive opinion, but that's the reason why it is called an exposure. My own basic toolkit for facilitation is a listening ear, a ready smile and an eye for reading faces. I have been part of a few projects with different people from foreign countries. And at the start the language is the most obvious mountain to summit.
The truth is, it's not such a tall mountain. Aside from the help of excellent interpreters, I have learned that one of the most important things with a group endeavor is setting up ground rules for the whole team. It will be hard enough to be in a strange situation, but it will be easier to go through any experience with a winning team attitude.
By the end of the two-week exposure, I got my rest, and am currently working on staving off a bacterial infection. I cannot let it just pass right now because I have a long day trip coming. Plus, it's never convenient to get sick.
I did enjoy this past experience, though. It is always a special memory to see a group form a system of support and open pockets of dialogue to share thoughts. Compliance to the schedule draws surface observations, but group reflection, pieces together personal opinion, feelings and knowledge. What students do afterwards shows how much they interact with their group and personal times. At the very end of the exposure, the students were given homework to do some art. The output was amazing to me. Each one was a record of what they valued the most from their personal experiences. This is what I will treasure.
The students are all back in their homes now. I do not think of the exposure as a pivoting experience for them. In many ways, the students will have bigger and more harrowing experiences in their lives. I prefer to believe that the exposure will be part of what they will consider in the future as part of their framework. This is where I hope I have been responsible in the time I had been allowed to think with all of them. To my group, I hope for the best.
Growing takes time, but like the sugarcane, the sweetness comes after much rain, much heat and much work.

Downplaying Expectations

I do tend to overwork based on expectations in some instances. I am now on a second run as a program assistant with my college for an international exposure program. I enjoyed the first run. This time I am on edge over the fact that I am not yet ready to jump in at just barely two weeks to go. I have done bare minimum work, but I am expected to get into the details soon. In the meantime I cannot yet say what it is that preoccupies me. Big projects all around. That's all I can say for now.

Testing

First of the year.