high school, kakulangan sa tulog, at tawag ng tadhana

sa lahat ng mga naging post ko ito na siguro ang pinaka-pointless. lasing, puyat, at walang magawa sa internet cafe. 4:30 ng umaga. nagsusunog ng oras habang naglalaro ng dota all-stars ang mga kasama ko. syet. buti pa sila may kalaro at kaulayaw na ibang tao. ako nagta-type lang at nakikinig sa aking bestfriend na mp3 player ko.

iba pa rin talaga pag kasama mo yung mga kaibigan mo galing high school. minsan na lang kayo magkita sa isang taon, at pare-pareho na lang ang pinag-uusapan niyo (what else but the golden past?) pero ang sarap pa rin ng tawanan ninyo. isang buong gabing walang tulugan lang kayo magkasama, preo sapat na yun para mapanatili yung tibay ng samahan niyo kahit di kayo nagkikita or nag-uusap. iba talaga siguro pag sila ang humubog sa pagkatao mo nung isang mahalagang panahon sa buhay mo. malaking bagay din yung pare-pareho kayong wala pa ring girlfriend.

sa gitna ng lahat ng ingay ni layno sa paglalaro ng dota, may bagay pa rin na di matanggal-tanggal sa isip ko.

yung nangyari sakin around 5 days ago nung nag-iimpake ako para sa aking brief las pinas getaway. dahil nag-aayos/nagtatapon din ako ng gamit, hinalukay ko yung mga archaeological relics sa bedside drawer ko. nakuha ko yung isang lumang organizer ko na huli kng ginamit nung undergrad pa. sa loob ng isa sa mga bulsa nito ay may nadukot akong maliit na pirasong papel na nakasara ng sticker at may jade seal (yung chinese character ng 'jason' na pinagawa ko sa dumalaw na chinese craftsman sa AS dati) ko. sa pagtataka ko, binuksan ko yun. ang laman? sulat ko. ang mga salitang "i will become a lawyer, but i will remain true to who i am." tapos may date - 6/20/03 - at pirma ko. sinulat at itinago ko yun para mabasa ko sa hinaharap (na siya ngayong kasalukuyan).

naalala ko noon yung panahon na may nagbanta ng malpractice suit sa nanay ko. sa sobrang sama ng loo ko dahil nakikita kong balisa at nabagabag yung nanay ko, nangako ako sa sarili ko non na magiging abogado ako, pero hindi ko kakalimutan yung mga totoong saloobin ko - halimbawa, na ayoko sa mga abogado. nung lumipas yung problema, nakalimutan ko rin yung sinulat kong nun. mabuti na rin siguro. pero di ko akalain na noon palang pala ay inisip ko na yung posibilidad ng pagiging abogado. akala ko ngayon-ngayon ko lang naisip yun at hindi ko kailanman seseryosohin to. haha. anak ng petot talaga o.

syempre kasabay nung pagbasa ko dun sa papel tumugtog sa radyo yung kantang 'gifts and curses' ng yellowcard. hindi siya sikat na kanta, pero gusto ko siya. galing siya sa soundtrack ng spider-man 2 (ang pelikulang tumapos sa isa rin sa mga maliligayang panahon ng buhay ko). yung lyrics, tono, at dating ng kanta ay tungkol sa pagtanggap sa pinapasan na responsibilidad at pagbitaw sa mga bagay na nais mo sanang makamit ngunit hindi maaari dahil sa mabigat na tungkuling nakapataw sa iyo. para sakin siya yung pinaka-theme ng spider man 2, at isa rin sa mga pinakapaborito kong kanta. lagi ko yung tinutugtog pag seryoso akong tapusin yung kung anuman ang ginagawa ko. may kahulugan kaya ang pagtugtog nun sa eksaktong sandali na binasa ko yung pangakong ginawa ko sa sarili ko noon?

ma-drama, at kakila-kilabot, pero totoo. ipinapahiwatig ba ng mga pangyayaring ito na dapat kong ipagpatuloy ito? o aksidente lang ang lahat at pilit ko lang nilalagyan ng kahulugan sa matinding pangangailangan kong makita ang kahulugan ng mga nangyayari sa buhay ko? putcha. kailangan ko lang sigurong manood muna ng porn. masyado na akong maraming iniisip.

isang makabuluhang bagong taon sa lahat.

lucid intervals on what lawyers do

when i decided to revive this blog from the nether regions of memory i had relegated it to, i changed the title to 'lucid intervals.' it's one of my favorite legal phrases. it's from Article 12, par. 1 of the Revised Penal Code. in a nutshell, it says that insane people are always exempt from criminal liability, except when they acted during a lucid interval. a lucid interval apparently is some sort of moment of clarity when one is able to cut through the haze (self-induced or otherwise) clouding one's thoughts and be truly conscious of one's doing - hence the responsibility imputed on you for your actions. why'd i use that for a blog title? i really don't know. i don't have lucid intervals that often. it just sounds catchy. i guess one can say that the entire point of writing a blog is to attempt (or hope) to reach that stage. at any rate, it definitely sounds better than 'tender years presumption' or 'last chance doctrine.'

the long silence can be attributed to my becoming a law student - sorry, working law student - since june of this year. the increasing dullness of my recent posts can also be attributed to same phenomenon (my blockmates all claim to have suffered similar losses in their creativity. you can almost hear it being sucked out of you during those long study breaks). like everyone else, i'm still in the process of trying to figure everything out. what is this so-called law profession? and what the hell am i doing with my life?

we now arrive at the best possible explanation for the drastic renaming. the blogger wishes to change this blog into a channel by which he can understand this new stage in his life.

haha. it just occurred to me. if i end up quitting law school and decide on working to be a chef instead, what then will i call this blog? 'secret recipe'? eeew.

yeah, i haven't written anything even remotely law or law school-related at all, and that's a shame. just goes to show how little thought i actually give to the things i enter into. (insert close friends nodding their heads - jason, thinking abuot the things he does? tch. that'll be the day.)

this semester we're taking up law 120 (the legal profession). it's a required subject that's supposed to give us a crash course on ethics and an overview of -what else? - the legal profession. the course's thrust is more on ethics though, it being a bar subject. i was hoping it would be more about the legal profession instead. like a sesame street segment on 'what lawyers do' to the tune of 'who are the people in your neighborhood?' god knows us clueless losers need to get an idea of what it is we're getting into...

after a semester and a half of law school, i've encountered several diffrent conceptions of what lawyers are and what it is they do. one professor told us that lawyering is as close as you can get to knighthood, that it's like an order of esteemed individuals committed to excellence and the pursuit of justice and striking own evil whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head. same professor also failed about a third of our batch in legal history on some undisclosed grading basis. so much for that 'knight of justice.'

others are less romantic about it. lawyers are 'glorified puppets' paid to recite and repeat the law and do what their clients want. the best one we got from jj disini. lawyers aren't worth anything without the fiction that is the law. in a life or death situation, what can a lawyer do? determine who's liable? his trade doesn't really enable him to make people happy. when civilization and society breaks down, there will be plenty of work for doctors and chefs and even artists and poets. the lawyer? he'll be like a high priest for a religion that doesn't exist.

and what do i have to contribute to this particular topic? what would justify my freezing my ass off in some remote internet cafe to make this post? i dunno. but i do know that my semester-and-a-half of studying law did pay off las t christmas day. how? when i was tasked to play banker in my little cousins' monopoly game..

see, the funny thing with the law is that it's all written down. in words. in text. some of it's perfectly clear, but a greater part of it wouldn't make sense until after the third or fourth time you've read the provision - and only after then after you've read the entire chapter or title. and yet those letters and commas - 'the language of the law,' as they call it, indeterminate and vague as they are, regulate a significant portion of our day-to-day lives. it's like the 'code' in the matrix. yeah, sure, you decide what to wear today or what to eat for lunch, but what do you think determines what clothing brands actually get into the philippines or how money actually travels in this world? economics? politics? maybe. but how do you think those twin sisters actually affect lives at the societal level? it's the law. the law on sales. private and public international law. the law on family relations. constitutional and political law. but wait, aren't laws perfectly capable of being broken? yeah. but hello, criminal law. and what, oh what, keeps the admittedly inequitable, restrictive, and oppressive philipine socio-economic structure in place? it's not super glue, that's for sure.

take for example the vague text on the chance 'real estate tax' card. it says that you pay $25 for each house and $100 for each hotel you own. enter overzealous parent 1, who claims that player 2, who has built a hotel each on baltic and mediteranean, must pay not $200- as would be the common-sense interpretation, but $800- which includes the maount for the hotels as well as the anount for the four houses player 2 constructed as a requirement for building the hotel. the $600 difference would spell the difference between survival and bankruptcy in a late monopoly game with houses on the pacific and boardwalk block. already overzealous parents 2 and 3 are arguing the point with overzealous parent 1. (it's right out of national geographic, i tell you. 'uncles and aunts in action') the kids are too busy laughing at each other's farting sound imitations to care.

the title deed card offers no aid for interpretation. it just says 'houses cost $50 each, hotels, $50 each plus four houses.' so what exactly happens to the houses when you build the hotel? are they demolished and deemed nonexistent? or do they still exist and therefore require payment of the $25 tax? how can i, the banker, restore order and possibly save player 2's (who also happens to be my little sister) prospects?

my first instinct would've been to argue the point or just laugh it off. but law school makes you think differently. before i used to start out with an idea, and argue for its acceptance based on how desirable, logical, or neceaasry it would be (i used to be good at it too). but that wouldn't be enough for law school, no sir. you'd have to have that ever-elusive 'legal basis' to make yours a valid legal assertion. if it isn't written in the law, it ain't worth squat. so we then turn to the rules.

the rules on hotels say that the player 'returns the houses' to the bank when s/he builds a hotel on his/her property. that word - 'returns' was all i needed to find order in the disorder of disguised sibling rivalry (that's all it was, really - my uncles and aunts channelling pent-up childhood monopoly grudges and using their kids as pawns). 'return' connotes a loss of possession and ownership. player 2 therefore cant be required to pay for houses that are no longer there or no longer hers. so speaketh the banker. and when you're the only one in the family with even the slightest semblance of familiarity with law and legal mumbo-jumbo, you get away with a lot of what you say. my little sister eventually won the game, but i maintain that my interference had little to do with it. glad i could help though. hehe.

i think a similar situation happened before in a previous game, during which my grandfather (the overzealous parents' parent) put his foot down and said the exact same thing i did. we all could've relied on precedent, but i think figuring it out on my own was pretty nifty in itself.

i have a dim idea that lawyers are supposed to use their specialized (and grossly overpriced and overhyped) knowledge to help people from all walks of life navigate the legal world and look after their interests and life-realities under the legal system at any given time. said lawyer dude can do cutthroat corporate work in the concrete jungles of makati, or he can get paid in fruit and livestock while representing farmers and peasants in a david vs. goliath land struggle. whatever he may end up doing, i think it's the representation and adversarial quality of legal proceedings that really sets him apart. no matter whose interests you're representing - in court, in some barangay proceeding, or in some boardroom meeting - you're duty-bound to do your best for that person (besides, if you win, you get more money - if you go for that kind of thing). it's a challenge and a privilege at the same time. fortunes rise and fall and lives change for the better or worse with each lawyerly act you do. i may be romanticizing a bit (okay, a lot), but there have been cases where a single comma or vague phrase can invalidate or negate a contract and lead to a major money-drain.

i wrote this down in an ethics journal assignment for the law 120 subject: what i find darkly exciting about the idea of practicing law is that it offers an opportunity to affect real change at the societal level even as it challenges one to continuously improve one's self. yeah, that, i believe, is what makes it close to knighthood. i find myself disinclined to talk about justice or such things, because in the end (one ofthe first thigs i learned in law school), there hardly is any 'justice' in the law. only lawyers who are willing to commit themselves to the struggle to secure just outcomes.

great. now we're making some progress. we can now talk about law and law school without feeling all corny and dopey about it. we can actually use 'law' and 'i' in the same sentence now! we've also formed our own elementary (and hoplessly naive) idea of what lawyers do. we now know what we're getting ourselves into... i think.

it's a start. now all i need to figure out is what i'm staying in law school for. or better, 'who'...

"the ultimate question"

to drive home the point of how pathetic my life has just gotten, here i am again, reduced to quoting movie lines and pasing them off as blog entries. ah well. such is life.

i finally got to watch the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy yesterday, and it pretty much blew me away. i was laughing all the time (even as i was slowly being overwhelmed by a sense of wonder and amazement in typical quasi-philosophical/existentialist hollywood magic mode). if you haven't watched it, i pity you. earth could be demolished tomorrow for all you know, and you're still blissfully ignorant. no wonder the dolphins think we suck. better hurry up and watch it. theere's bound to be copy at your friendly neighborhood pirated dvd retailer. don't leave thios plane of existence without watching it. o.O

H2G2 pretty much earned its way into my list of all-time favorite movies (right up there with fight club, punch-drunk love, and casablanca, inter alia), but it's this little bit of dialogue that just makes me want to give douglas adams a posthumous oscar award for giving everyone (loveless sci-fi geeks and stuck-up movie critics alike) THE question.

so what's the ultimate question, about life, the universe, and everythiing? the movie starts out with the premise that the answer is '42.' it's the question that has the hapless heroes scrambling form one end of the universe to another. and when the villains threaten to forciby extract arthur dent's (typical everyman hero figure) brain in order to arrive athe ultimate question, he comes up with this gem of a monologue:

"just wait a sodding minute! you want a question that goes with the answer 42? well, what about what's 6 x 7? or... um, uh... how many vogons does it take to change a light bulb?! here's one: how many roads must a man walk down..?

fine, fine... take it. 'cause my hand is filed with questions and i can assure you that no answer to any one of them has ever brought me one iota of happiness...

except for one. THE one. teh only question i've ever wanted an answer to:

is she the one?

the answer bloody well isn't 42, it's yes... undoubtedly, unequivocally, unabashedly, yes...

and for one week, on week in my sad little... blip of an existence... it made me happy..."

cheesy? yeah. but it'll get to you more if you actually watch the movie. some people might think of it as a major letdown. you start with a premise that promises to answer the 'ultimate question' only to finmd out that it's a love story. but it's actually more than that. ah, i dunno. this ain't a film review column. i just really, realy, really, liked the movie. probably becasue a large part of me does think that THAT question is the ultimate question.

...just goes to show how pathetic life gets on christmas vacation...

**********************

"I didn't do anything. I'm a nice man, I mind my own business.
So you tell me "that's that"before I beat the hell from you.
I have so much strength in me you have no idea.
I have a love in my life, it makes me stronger than anything you can imagine."

~Adam Sandler, Punch-drunk Love

"our deepest fear..."

gaano ka-pathetic ang buhay ko so far? ngayon ko lang napanood yung coach carter. lumabas siya nung june-july and i promised myself that i would watch it, come hell or high water. but no... tinamaan ba naman ng magaling, kinain ng persons and family relations ang oras ko. hindi ko siya napanood. ni H2G2 di ko namalayan na showing na pala...

coach carter was an ok film. it was a tad predictable, save for the unstorybook-like ending which i think drove home the point perfectly. what's the best thing that can happen to a bunch of ballplayers who thought life only revolve around the streets and playing ball? have them lose the championship but realize that there's a future for them in college. but what made the movie stand out was this bit of dialogue:

what's your deepest fear?

our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
your playing small does not serve the world,
there is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that others won't feel insecure around you.

we are all meant to shine as children do.
it is not just in some of us, it's in everyone.
and as we loet our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
and as we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

this poem? proverb? passage? was recited by the token latino guy on the team just as samuel l. jackson was about to 'quit' coaching them. i scanned the credits in the hope of finding an author i can attribute the passage to, but there wasn't any. i guess it was just some overzealous sciprwriter taking liberties with ken carter's lifestory. or maybe it was something ken carter wrote himself and wanted published. whatever it was, it did reach out to me and flick a switch on inside me. another one of those awe-inspiring hollywood poetic license moments. (the last one i had was with the live-action peter pan film)

all my life i've always been averse to taking responsibility. the phrase 'playing small' captures my modus operandi quite aptly. 'why bother going to all that trouble when only this much would be good enough?' and, 'no, i'm not doing this because i'm really into it, ayoko lang mapahiya ako/tayo.' are some of my most familiar quotable quotes. of course, some of my more perceptive friends have been quick to point out that it's all a farce i maintain so as to keep up my 'aimless loser/idiot-genius' cred, and at some level (though hell will probably freeze over before i admit it out loud) they're right. jason, self-righteous poseur. add that to my resume.

part of it is probably vanity: we downplay ourselves and what we can do in order to extract praise and reassurances from other people that we do rock and don't suck that bad. another reason, although less self-serving, is just as lame: we don't want others to think less of themselves when they compare themselves to us.

since it's christmas, and during christmas you tell the truth, i'm going to come clean and admit to both counts of playing small. yeah, hear me well, say thankya and cry your pardon. i played small when i deliberately ditched the auditions for the high school one-act play contests. i played small when i kept whining about how dissatisfied i was with the way our college student council ran things, only to keep quiet when asked what i proposed should be done. i played small all the time i was with friends whose GWAs were lower than me when i kept chalking up my good grades to our beloved lord of tsamba (there is a difference between acknowledging your indebtednesss to friends and refusing to own up to their sincere praise). i played small when i let others muddle their way through tasks i would've been perfectly capable of helping them with - just because i don't want to take on aditional responsibility or 'complicate' my life anymore than it already is. i play small with every voluntary recit i pass up even though i know the answer. i play small with every time i keep my mouth shut or refuse to give a second thought to a problem or cause i know i can help with. for a big guy whose friends are counting on him to succeed and make a mark for others, i ain't doing so hot.

in perfect hollywod world, this is the part whee i say to myself, 'no more playing small... blah blah blah' and begin to turn my life around. but this is the jason show, or the tragicomedy known as my life, and i know it's never that easy. the best i can hope for is a gradual, one-good-deed-one-day-at-a-time kind of change. and that's probably all i can promise to myself and the world. besides, i already owned up to being a self-righteous poseur. cut me some slack, now...

we don't really help anyone (least of all ourselves) by fooling ourselves with some false sense of security brought about by a narrow and limited image of our place in this world. i think it was an economics professor (bless those crazies at the SE) who told us that the problem with Filipinos is that they limit themselves and never dream big. maybe we're frightened of the possibility of failing. maybe we're bothered or even scared to death of what others might think about us when we go that ambitious extra step. i know i usually am. but i think here would be the proper instance to throw back the immortal Filipino replies: 'bahala na!' and 'anong pake nila?'

yeah, maybe it's time to really shoot for the stars. at least that way, if i come up short, i'll still end up landing on the moon. and i i do, i'll have a nice view of all those who'll come after me and do make it.

it's been THAT long..?!

my, my. how fast time flies when you're neck-deep in the process of rediscovering yourself.

it's been so long since my last post that i had to go through the whole email password recovery thing to sign back in. i even got confused abuot my username. my apologies to 'strangelysilent' if blogger just crammed you inbox with password recovery messages. that was me. serves you right, though. strangelysilent was, and always will be, my tag. o.O

a lot of things have happened since my last post, and i 've been getting a lot of half-hearted proddings from people to update my blog. having nothing better to do this christmas break, i figured i'd just as well put something new into this thing. ang pathetic naman tignan kung yung last post ko ang magiging final post ko. 'nostalgic episodes and life-changing realizations? eeew. please lang. i am soo more than that.

before the year ends i guess i ought to bury a little time capsule for myself - a sort of recap of the things that happened since graduation. that way i'll have something to read about come the end of this schoolyear (which in all likelihood will be the only time this blog will hear from me again). a lot of great things have happened to me this year. it's like one of those years you know you don't deserve. pero tangina, i'm taking it anyway. it's not like i have a choice. hehe.

it's been such an eventful year that the few entries that i did get to post sound like some other guy talking in my sleep. i must've changed without my knowing it. but nah. like the great sage and eminent junkie ely buendia says, 'walang nagbago.' i've probably only grown older inside. god knows i must've aged a decade on the outside after just a semester and a half of law school. ah well. pero nalungkot ako nung bumalik ako sa mga dati kong org at na-realize ko na wala na akong pwedeng tawaging ate o kuya. damn. i'm old. but still young enough to pretend, i guess.

yup, it's been that long. but i did have to do something with my life. it's just a pity that i chose law school instead of a life of aimless blogging. sigh. would that i no longer have to return to the corridors of malcolm hall come january. to be torn away from one's blog and forced to read SCRA... oh, the ignominy of it all.. NOT.

i guess this ought to be enough for a test post. and i really should be getting back to those continental shelf CVs. plus yung handwritten digests pa ni sison. crap.

mukhang mawawalan rin ako ng oras para mag-blog..