Four Days

I would say I had a very emotional, adventurous and enlightening four days in my aunt's apartment in Manila. I'd like to consider it one of the most torturous four days of my life but at the same time, very memorable because God got through my thick head during those days.

He held my hand and told me in the voice of my dad, "Anak, you are better than this. It's not yet over. Fight."

Wednesday was the first day of school but my sister and I didn't come because we're not yet enrolled. And so we left for Manila Wednesday morning only to find our apartment locked. There was a note from the owner that says unless we pay the rent, our stuff will be the temporary tenants of our apartment. That was the first blow of bad vibes for the day. Then here comes our aunt who lives in an apartment not far away from ours and offered her place for us to stay in until the weekend. Since my sister and I can't do anything, we agreed and walked our way to our aunt's apartment, lots of bags strapped all over our bodies. Our aunt's apartment is not bad. It's big enough for me and my sister but with my aunt, two of her children, one nephew and a girl tenant, it was a nightmare. Of course my sister and I didn't say a word. We're only visitors after all. After settling down, my mom talked to my aunt about the strategy they're going to use to get us enrolled. It so happened that my aunt's very good at talking people into what she wants to happen so my mom got the best advice and at the end of the day, my sister and I were officially enrolled. When my aunt left to enroll us together with my mom, I stayed the whole time outside her apartment's door and busied myself sending text messages to my friends asking them to call me up. I wanted someone to talk to so badly at that time. Three of them did call and asked what happened and that's when I completely broke down. Locked apartment with all the important stuff inside, insufficient tuition money, no place to stay in for the next semester and totally broke. It was like the end of the world and for the second time in the past few months, I thought of killing myself again. It was kind of funny considering I wrote a mental list weighing the pros and cons of suicide at the current situation. In the end, a high school friend of mine saved the day by giving me an inspirational pep talk over the phone. Five minutes of encouraging words and suicide was out the window. I started breathing properly again after all the phone calls and text messages. I also had a little talk with my sister who was basically doing the same thing - answering calls and text messages from her friends who are worried about her absence. We exchanged words of defeat and surrender but after ten minutes of that, we're back inside our aunt's apartment, watching Showtime while munching on junk food our aunt provided for us.

I was busy laughing at Vice Ganda's joke when my phone rang. The number was not registered but I answered it anyway. The guy from the other line said he's from a company from the US and that he'd be really happy to offer me a job. The bomb of hope from the heavens came exploding right on top of my head. I agreed to set an appointment for the orientation on Friday, 3 PM at their office somewhere in Ortigas. My heart was jumping while I was scribbling away on a scratch paper all the info the guy was dictating. After the phone call, I was in ecstasy. There was the promise of tomorrow.

I went to school the next day only to find out that the professors I didn't want to have for my last semester in college were actually my professors for Current Issues and Physiology. I wanted to die. And my friend who invited me to attend an orientation for a potential part time job told me that I'm a potential victim of a falling company. Yes. She was talking about the phone call I received. What she said actually made sense because the guy from the other line knew who I was before I even gave him my name and he won't tell me exactly where he got my mobile number. From excited, I went all paranoid about the agreed meeting on Friday. At the end of the story, I didn't show up for dear life. I guess it's okay considering nobody bothered me after that.

Friday. I can't bear staying in my aunt's apartment. My sister went to school and I practically have no one to talk to considering my cousin would rather talk to his hamster than have a real human conversation with me and my other cousin was asleep (he works for a club so he's awake at night and asleep during the day). The girl tenant was busy talking to someone on the phone while my aunt's nephew went out to play with his friends. Salvation came in the form of a text message from one of my thesis buddies. We have to do thesis stuff at 1 PM and so I came only to find out that it was moved to 3 PM. I gave up and went home though I felt really bad for leaving my thesis mate alone. To ultimately escape my aunt's apartment and the people who live there, I decided to go to Gateway to meet with my friend. I towed my sister along and really had a great time. That night, my sister and I started talking about our new arrangement. We decided to just give up looking for a new apartment and just stay at our home in Taguig and commute. It wasn't totally a bad idea considering we would be commuting together and it would do our mom a big favor. I'm sort of excited.

Saturday. I didn't go to my only class which was at 7 AM because of the usual reason - LAZINESS. Instead, I just met up with my friend and went to the orientation she was talking about. Now this is the real promise of tomorrow. I'm not going to elaborate about FrontRow in this entry because I believe that I'm not in the proper position to actually tell a story about it. I'd just like to say that FrontRow has a badass office, friendly agents and funny facilitators. Overall, I enjoyed the orientation and I committed to join. It's worth the risk.

Of course my mom told me I'm going to commit one of the biggest mistakes of my life by joining FrontRow and of course, I didn't listen. As she blabbed on yesterday about my plans of joining, I just stared at her like she's a television on mute. Then she stopped and said, "Bahala ka sa buhay mo." The note was clear on my face. NO ONE CAN STOP ME, MOM. SORRY. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME.

Going home to our real house felt like a breath of fresh air. I missed everything in here including the feeling that my dad still lives with us. I went to a party at my friend's place last night and got drunk. It was fun. I guess I'll live here in our real house, with all the people I love and all the reasons for me to go on.

It's not yet over till I say it's over.

I'm gonna fight.