26-Day Project: O

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter O.

Word: order

It has become a sort of automatic reaction, really; whenever a person approached the counter, she would automatically bend over and quickly retrieve a new tray with her left hand, while her right snatched a sheet of paper mat and placed it over the tray. She smiled slightly at the newcomer, urging him to start speaking so her business with him would be over.

As he spoke, she punched in the orders on her machine. Whenever the guy paused, looking not at her but up at the brightly lit menu (as customers always do), she would wait patiently, still wearing that smile, although everyone knew service crew like her do not really mean it.

With the orders punched in, she set about taking the food items from the busy kitchen churning meal after meal behind her. The cup she filled in quickly with soda, carrying it carefully as she maneuvered her way back to her place while her colleagues were doing the same, trying to avoid hitting each other in the cramped workspace. She grabbed the fries, the burger, and the chicken meal from the grille behind her and placed them neatly on the tray. She stopped to catch her breath and punched in some keys for the total.

The guy paid. She acknowledged the amount, waited for the receipt to be printed while she rummaged around for the change. She tore off the printed receipt, handed it with the change, and watched from her bent position (as she now bent to take a new tray) as her next customer moves in.

Day in, day out. In a busy fastfood place the actions never stop. Customers of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments came to her every minute, demanding their food and surrendering their money. Throughout it all she had to greet them with a facetious smile.

It was a dead-end job, but her education (or lack thereof) only helped her land this sort of job. Even if she quits her current job, not much different prospects waited for her–maybe even worse. It couldn’t be helped; an untold force that controls the world tells her that the current order in society favors the privileged educated.

26-Day Project: N

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter N.

Word: near

Every day he passes by and we say “Good morning” to each other, so painfully polite. I watch him go and see how he’s so naturally impolite to his friends. A mark of being comfortable with them, I note, and I long for the day he would stop being so polite with me and start being more him.

(Because no one could be that polite, not even I. I wonder sometimes if I should start things.)

He sits beside me, sometimes, and I get so flustered and nervous about doing the wrong things that I pointedly ignore him. And then, regretting that I did. It is a never-ending cycle.

So near, yet so far. I think about how to close the distance, if it is at all possible to close it. I wonder if he ever thinks too much of our closeness–physically–and our distance–emotionally, mentally, everything else.

I wonder if I’m the only one doing all the thinking. It is sad, if it were true, because it would tell me flat out that he doesn’t really care.

26-Day Project: M

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter M.

Word: media

When I was a little kid, I wanted to become a writer. I even asked my parents if there was a course in college that would let me earn a degree in Being An Author. 

When I grew a little older, I learned that the closest course to my dream career was Creative Writing. But by then I learned that there was this other course that could let me write, travel, and Be More Important all at the same time: mass communications.

Until now I’ve been harboring that desire to be part of the media workforce, to bravely saunter on and get the news despite freaks of nature, bomb explosions, or some other horrifying act all happening in the vicinity. It wasn’t a glamorous job, I knew, but it looked and heard and seemed kind of cool. And so I wanted it. And now I’m taking a course in Communications, hoping to concentrate on journalism and media studies in my third year.

I’ve joined the school paper in the meantime; seven months and six stories later, I began to question my chosen career path. The work was hard, but exciting enough to keep me going; nerve-wracking (especially when interviewing people or hunting them down), but fulfilling; fast-paced but all worth it in the end. I’ve picked up quite a few lessons along the way: never assume that interviewees would always be willing to talk, or be prompt, or be courteous; every story is a lesson in humility; and there are very many people who are smarter than you.

It might be my inferiority complex kicking in, but now I’m beginning to doubt if I can make it big in this field. It’s not even a well-paying job, especially if you start at the bottom. It might be all worth it in the end, but I don’t know if I’ve got the guts to see it through.

26-Day Project: L

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter L.

Word: love

“It’s amazing, isn’t it? We never used to care for this ‘love’ stuff before. We used to think about all those grand concepts of independence, freedom, rights…but not love.”

“Yeah, I know. I think we’ve reached that stage of Maslow’s hierarchy for the need of love and belongingness.”

Countless songs have paid tribute to love gained and love lost; poets have strung out their best and worst lines trying to encapsulate love into verse. It’s one of the most popular, most overused, and still the most captivating topic that humankind has ever encountered.

Debate continues on whether it’s merely a hormonal thing, or a universal phenomenon, or an individual urge. But it’s undoubtedly one of the things that man continually searches for, whether in the form of friendly love or romantic love or Platonic love. Somehow we think we can’t live without at least one form of it manifested over us.

Teenagers are infamous for being the most susceptible age group to this hormonal phenomenon. Even the most indifferent, perhaps, will feel a bit of longing for the most cliche ‘signs’ of love–holding hands, the embrace, having someone beside you. It’s cheesy, it’s dramatic, but it’s probably as real as it can get.

Sometimes it amazes me to see how my most rational, independent-thinking friends can turn into mindless piles of goo and emo-ness over the most cheesy things. Seeing one’s love = poetic declarations of happiness. Having a bad day with one’s love = sob stories and emo statements. It’s crazy. It’s tiring. It’s infuriating having to talk sense into some of them. Sometimes I wonder why I seem to be so detached from all of this.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t found the one yet, or I’m just hesitant to join the bandwagon and lose my senses in the process.

26-Day Project: K

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter K.

Word: karma

Never mind, I said. Karma will hit her one day.

It has always been this way. Indecision or non-action would always be justified by this mystical concept called karma whose existence is still subject to debate. Do something bad, and karma will be out to get you. Maybe immediately, or after a certain amount of time, but it will get you. 

Sometimes it’s the only force to depend upon when you don’t want to take a vengeful action. It’s little consolation, really. Sometimes I think it’s just for show–to tell people you’re not that kind of person who takes revenge and whatever society deems as bad actions. But you know you’re not that way, only–only society says we should be that way.

26-Day Project: J

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter J.

Word: joke

They say humor transcends boundaries, but apparently, it can’t really overcome the socio-economic ones.

Take my stay in this elite, uppity university. My shallow, simple jokes (intended or not) would send my friends and I guffawing back in our simple, middle-class high school. Here in college all I get are pitiful glances and raised eyebrows. Apparently they could not take a joke, or our level of humor is fundamentally different.

One humor trick I often employ is teasing someone else. Harmless teasing, of course, which would lead to inane banter when I was with high school friends. Here in college someone gets unexpectedly offended, and I would have to say I meant it as a joke, but never apologizing. I didn’t mean to offend, anyway, and so I was adamant about not giving apologies.

Maybe this is the reason why I’ve been very unhappy lately with college. They say I’m always so serious, but when I strive to get out of my shell, crack jokes and have a good time, they can’t get it, or they merely give me a “what are you talking about” stare. No wonder I feel so out of my league. They’re out of my reach.

26-Day Project: I

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter I.

Word: if

The hardest thing to live with in the world is regret. 

If I had been stronger. If I had been braver. If I had only more faith in myself. Then… 

Life would be better. 

But would it now? No one knows, but we think we do. We think that if we could only go back in time and correct—or better—ourselves, everything would be alright, maybe even more than alright. 

Yes. Probably. Likely. But even so, whatever we achieved now is our making. It has a purpose. We live to find that purpose.

26-Day Project: H

Part of the 26-Day Project series 

This post is brought to you by the letter H.

 Word: heart

 Dear heart,

 Are you sure? Maybe it’s not so much a feeling of real love, you know, than the feeling of loneliness. I can’t really blame you, of course, seeing how today’s supposedly your day and no one’s regaled you with normal Your-Day gifts.

I know I told you not to hope, but…well, I was holding a tiny bit of hope myself, so we’re both at fault there. I mean, what can we expect? We’ve spent only one year in this place and we expect Your-Day gifts already. I mean, how unrealistic can we get? 

But I guess it’s what they call human nature. It can’t be helped, of course, especially not with these damn hormones messing things up as usual. I, for one, can’t help but think that’s the song I want to hear sung to me when I saw that guy pass by with a guitar and singing “With A Smile” to himself. He’s probably off to serenade a lucky lady. And I can’t help but think I got roses last year whenever I see guys clutching bouquets or girls cradling theirs in their arms, Miss Universe-style. Or seeing the library so empty because most people are probably on dates. Or seeing the campus grounds littered with couples and a few stray singles like me. 

It’s so stupid, I tell you. But it’s human nature. I’m pretty sure we both felt the same. 

Let me ask you something: when you saw that guy with the guitar passing by, or when you saw the guys and girls with roses and other pretty flowers, did it hurt? 

A bit.

 Really now? 

Okay, a lot. 

I see.

26-Day Project: G

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter G.

Word: God

I was told that when I was a kid, I only had two favorite places outside of home. One was the kid-friendly and kid-loving local fastfood restaurant, Jollibee. (It wasn’t really a surprise.) The other was the local church fronting the fastfood.

“Simbahan” (church) was also one of the first few words I learned to say, and so you could say I had a sort of connection with religion and God and faith and Christianity.

I suppose that was true then, but not exactly now. Getting into college and getting new and various perspectives on Church doctrine and other matters allowed me to think on my own; I didn’t accept everything our priest said, and now I feel so out of touch with the faith I had believed in.

Don’t get me wrong. I have not become an atheist. I still want to believe in, and maintain my connection with, God. But I am enlightened now.

26-Day Project: F

Part of the 26-Day Project series

This post is brought to you by the letter F.

Word: father

This I found to be true: whenever I’d need no-nonsense, non-judgemental comforting, I’d go to my mother; she was always on my side, no matter what the case was. But whenever I’d need serious advice with cost-benefit analyses thrown into the mix, it was my father to whom I’d always turn to.

A big chunk of life lessons I learned from my father, almost of them learned while we were in flux. He lectured me on politics and economics while I played passenger in the car, taught me how to pedal on my own when I was a kid learning how to bike, and for all I know he may have taught me how to walk, too.

Now he’s teaching me how to drive. I’ve always been touchy about what I can and can’t do, and whenever I’d drive off with him there’s always a sense of dread–dreading failing him, earning his ire, listening to him scolding me as I narrowly evaded that oncoming car. It was painful trying to keep us both alive driving the thing while his angry voice resonated in my head, and there was a painful tightening of my chest when I remember his dismay.

It drove me into tears and a slight depression once, and even though I would one day be able to drive confidently and laugh at myself after several years, it did nothing to lighten the feeling. I knew it was for my own good, but reason gave way to feeling. Pain is personal, after all.

Up to now my driving’s not perfect, but I’m gaining more confidence each time. Now that I think about it, my dad’s been teaching me how to move. He’s been pushing me out into the world and letting me go further into roads less traveled.