Black Monday
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Black Monday
Let's talk about yesterday, which wasn't exactly very kind to me. In my guts I knew what was coming, I knew that the paper that I sat for a week ago was about to explode in my face. It was scary, it really was, and it ruined my ability to enjoy the weekend by doing absolutely nothing at all, as I initially promised myself. It was a vow I made not to touch a single textbook, make a single piece of note, read a single word in the assignments, and just allow myself to sink into the comfortable feather beds big enough to fit the entire weekend. It was only the mid terms, but it was enough for me to feel like I have come to the end of it all, all over again. I still have halfway to go, still quite a bit of road to cover before the very end of this semester - sadly. Things have not turned out the way I expected or hoped it to, and I must say that I have only myself to blame - like most of the other times. Anyway, last week was a promise to myself to not be myself, to just let things slide, so to speak. But the nagging feeling in the back of my mind prevented everything I wanted from happening. The grades, those silly silly grades. We always allow ourselves to be defined, to be dictated by those idiotic little alphabets and numbers that we become consumed within ourselves. I should have known better, but I guess my will is not as strong as it used to be.
Let's talk about yesterday, which wasn't exactly very kind to me. In my guts I knew what was coming, I knew that the paper that I sat for a week ago was about to explode in my face. It was scary, it really was, and it ruined my ability to enjoy the weekend by doing absolutely nothing at all, as I initially promised myself. It was a vow I made not to touch a single textbook, make a single piece of note, read a single word in the assignments, and just allow myself to sink into the comfortable feather beds big enough to fit the entire weekend. It was only the mid terms, but it was enough for me to feel like I have come to the end of it all, all over again. I still have halfway to go, still quite a bit of road to cover before the very end of this semester - sadly. Things have not turned out the way I expected or hoped it to, and I must say that I have only myself to blame - like most of the other times. Anyway, last week was a promise to myself to not be myself, to just let things slide, so to speak. But the nagging feeling in the back of my mind prevented everything I wanted from happening. The grades, those silly silly grades. We always allow ourselves to be defined, to be dictated by those idiotic little alphabets and numbers that we become consumed within ourselves. I should have known better, but I guess my will is not as strong as it used to be.
There weren't a lot of things to laugh about yesterday, the 17th of March 2008. It has been a year since that day, the day which I shall not bring up again. Nonetheless, other than the nostalgic reasons, yesterday has just not been very kind to me. Rosemary straddled to the front of the class, explained to us that we were going to get our results back. A gob of spit was swallowed, the first sign of anxiety broke out within the hairline of my forehead. My palms were sweaty, knees were weak and my head felt suddenly heavy. It was the feeling of impending doom, sort of like driving a car over a cliff and then just waiting for the ground to meet the hood of your car, and you to meet death in due time. The grades were given out on white pieces of paper with our student numbers written on them, and the numerical grade right next to the numbers. A pathetic number, a disappointing score. It was the first blow to a lousy, lousy day to come. There aren't a lot of things that can bring me down to be honest, and the one thing that does it so well is something that is also so trivial at the very same time. I was dismayed, and demoralized, but at the same time motivated. It was a complicated outflow of emotions, but let's just say that I am a serial mugger right now - at least before I started blogging.
I had a talk with Rosemary alone, it was on her way to her lunch. It felt remotely comforting, but comforting nonetheless. It is always comforting to hear that the tiger is not going to eat you up, even if you have a broken leg and a sealed off cave. Somehow, I detected a condescending tone, words being spoken by her just to brush me off. But then truthful words weren't my priority right then, I just needed somebody to talk sense into me even if they didn't mean it at all. At times, humans can be that in need of things of such surface value, and I suppose as a beggar I didn't have much options to choose from. I took her words and treated it as gold, repeated it over and over in my head and told myself that there is still hope, that there is still a way to recover from his mess. I have done it before, I have done it last semester when I tripped on the rope hidden in the bushes by the Dark Enforcer, I can definitely do it again. That thought accompanied me through the lonely trip back home on the bus, with only my iPod as a personal comfort, thinking that the Black Monday was finally over.
Then my stop came, my black t-shirt sucked out the heat from the sun and baked me alive. It wasn't helped that my iPod suddenly died on me, the screen was stuck on Maserati's "Inventions". The two magical reboot buttons didn't work, and I tried every single possible combinations on the trackpad - those didn't work either. The funny thing about the whole situation was how the screen actually showed a sad iPod, and by that I am not being figurative here. There literally was a picture of an iPod with a sad face, and it looked like some kind of joke to me. As if the Monday wasn't bad enough already, my only source of comfort on the way home was replaced by the image of a dead cartoon iPod asking me to visit the website for troubleshooting issues. That didn't work out either, and I ended up searching through my entire bedroom for the old iPod-Mini just to get it traded in within the span of this week for a brand new one. Covered in dusty and finding things that should have remained buried under layers of old letters and textbooks, I sat in the middle of the floor that was already covered in memories of various forms.
But there is always a balance to things, two sides of a coin. Doing badly at a paper only served as a motivation for me to work harder for the rest of the term, and having a busted iPod also meant the coming of a brand new one. And if those weren't convincing enough for me, the night suddenly turned for the better when a little blue box appeared at the bottom right hand side of my computer screen and caught me by surprise. It was a name that I haven't seen in eons, a name that I have been waiting for for the past, well, I lost count of the months. There at last, a reason to smile all over again, a reason to think that yesterday wasn't actually all that bad after all. It was my friend, my long lost friend, coming back into my life in the form of a little blue box. I was skeptical at first, not sure if it was her or just somebody sitting at her desk in the office again. But when she replied in capital letters and her familiar face appeared in the display picture, I knew. I knew, that she's back, I found her again.
It was great to find out that you are alright, to know that you are safe on your side of the world. I guess the effects of that e-mail were delayed for a little more than a month, but at least it got to you eventually. You don't know how excited I am, to know that my pillar of hope in the unholy hours of the night is back in my life all over again, the person I can depend on for - well, almost anything other than physical presence. It wasn't a very long conversation, but it was a very exciting one indeed. It must be fun working as a personal assistant, though the working hours do seem to be rather hectic and inhumane. Still, you sound like you are enjoying your work somehow, and you seem to have changed as well - at least from the entries that I have tried to catch up on on your blog, so far. It is nice to hear from you again, it really is. It really is. Be here, you have the rest of my life to catch up on.
A reason to smile.
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on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 at 10:27 PM.
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4:36 PM
Aww. I am glad that we found each other, again. My life is much more chaotic-- if that is possible-- than before, but here I am all the same.