I’m not graduating.
So well, yeah, I guess I lied being a fresh graduate on my description, but that doesn’t mean I’ll spend another semester in college! Just until this summer. Yeah, until summer only. Hopefully.
In my place, classes start in June and end in March, whether be preschool, high school, or even post-grad school. We have three vacations: a two-week sem break that starts mid-October to early November, a Christmas vacation from mid-December ending in early January, and the most-awaited summer vacation starting after the end of a school year in April first week up to the start of the rainy season and another school year in mid-June. Though lately, especially in the top 4 prestigious schools of our country, we’ve started adapting a more Americanized academic schedule. I guess the only reason everyone is anxious about this change is because in May, we hold a lot of festivals for our saints and heroes, celebrations of village specialities and origins, etc. And adapting the American calendar of schooling meant bulldozing through those centuries-old traditions, which will probably lead to a more Americanized thinking and the extinction of local beliefs and culture.
So that aside, when one reads summer class, that means you’ll be redeeming yourself of your past mistakes and failures. Literally. If you failed a subject that holds you back a sem, you take it in summer class. In my case, I have two minors to clear. And I know you must be wondering why I didn’t take it last summer, right? One answer: Laziness. Yes, I was too lazy to take summer class. I mean, who’d want to study all by yourself when the rest of your friends and batch mates are on vacation? Yeah, and now I paid the price by not graduating. Curiously, I’m not the least bit regretful about it. Don’t ask why, I don’t know either. I tend to feel inappropriate feelings most of the time, and I don’t really bang my skull on the wall any more asking why I don’t feel like everyone else.
Of course, a change in the academic calendar also has its advantages. In a year, our place gets hit by typhoons an average of 30. Meaning in a month, we get two to three typhoons traipsing through our lands. Floods are a natural occurrence to us, especially in the big cities because of the poor drainage system our government seems to be too stupid to notice. Landslides are the same because, yet again, everyone seems to wonder why this happens all the time when they don’t even make any moves on strictly stopping illegal logging and mining operated by the Chinese syndicates. Death is a dear friend and unless you live in the heavily-guarded posh residential districts, here the week is never over until someone in your neighbourhood dies out of drugs or dispute. Strangely, suicide is a rare event here, and its mortality rate only rises when the media sensationalises one.
In a nutshell, our educational system’s debate on changing the academic calendar is basically just republicans versus democrats.
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If you already think I live in the ghetto, then maybe you should re-evaluate that because you must be thinking my whole country is a freaking ghetto. Well I won’t argue with that. That is generally true, in a way. So, have you guessed what country I’m from? You don’t have to spill it though, because even I, its own proud citizen, has a bit of shame when I mention my origins. I’m also doing this out of neutrality, so in the comments (IF I ever get comments… *insert crying happy face here*) there’ll be no “Yeah! I’m so proud to be ********!”. Haha, I bet you thought of a curse word there when you saw the censors… *lol face right here*
First off, I live in a tropical country. Yeah, in those hot countries near the equator with perpetually tanned people white people so very much adore. Sorry, I have a slight racism because of my mum’s bad influence. Though I promise I’m not one of those crazy nazi-like fanatics who wants everyone to burn because they’re not their race. Don’t worry, my level of racism will depend on how racist you are to me or everyone.
Uhm, let’s just say I’m one of those cynical people that goes, “They’re racists, so why can’t we be racists too?” You get me, right? I mean, let’s be honest here. No one’s a complete non-racist. Even if you say you aren’t, don’t lie that you don’t have a bit of assumption when you see four-eyed Asian kids, black swag masters, and arrogant white businessmen because of the media’s mass hypnosis. You just happen to be good at hiding these thoughts because you don’t openly talk about them to anyone. People even lie just to fit in, which is quite pitiful of them. I do hope you aren’t one of them.
So let’s just also say that I’m not going to be one of those well-mannered goody-two shoes when it comes to my writing (though I do act like one in real life). There’s a study that shows the more homophobic a person is, the more likely they’ll become homosexuals themselves, and I think that also goes for hypocrites and racists. The more anti-racist and anti-hypocrite one is, the more they are likely to become or be one. So you can assume I’m working on this principle when I write my entries.
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I’m almost 20, but I still feel that I’m not ready rebel to yet. In truth, I haven’t really rebelled against anyone before (including parents). But after all the angst and betrayal and fallacy of the teenage banality, one tends to get worn down so much that you just don’t want to speak any more because, for sure, another word out of your mouth will only mean you’re asking for more trouble. And that’s kinda what happened to me.
The silence is rewarding though. It was my sanctuary before my parents and I moved in another place when I started college. Along with my writing and drawing and love of music, my own head is the only haven I get to have in this world. Well, yeah, when we moved I finally got my own room, but is it really mine when inside there are stuff like stacks of plastic boxes and shoe boxes and a cabinet full of mum’s things, and the ceiling slants too much it eats too much space to stand in and the walls aren’t even the shade of orange I like much to my chagrin? No. When the walls are paper-thin you can hear the loud TV of your deaf grandmother on one side and your parents having sex on the other, you might as well just break the walls because it’s probably better that way than faking non-existent courtesies on privacy in the first place.
So where do I get my silence lately? I don’t. And that’s why I’m not in my usual kind and genteel demeanour nowadays because, and I know you know the feeling, I’m not getting what I want. I’m not in my element, I don’t have time for my endeavours and I certainly don’t have time to unwind myself from all the stress and hassle and negativity of this world.
It’s so bottled up inside me that, if the law doesn’t exist any more, I’d bite the throat off the next person I see and scoop out their eyeballs and put it in their mouth and fist their asses and pull out their innards and wrap their bodies with them and perforate them with a chair or something even if they’re someone I treasure the most. Reading this, I should now warn you that in my following posts, you’d probably read me cussing my way to heaven-knows-where.
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Also, the word racism has a broader meaning in my dictionary. Because I’m too lazy to thoroughly research on different terms regarding many subjects, I’m just going to assume that it means any belief or doctrine that inherent differences among various racial, religious, educational, and cultural groups determine individual achievement, either with or without the premise superiority or inferiority amongst them.
So you might read me using the word in different, often sensitive topics, and you might also read me using other words that should only be used within a certain theme in a different one; but you see, I’m not really the kind to restrict myself with such rules that won’t get me jailed if I break them.
For example, “Belligerence”. Belligerence is the act of war-like hostility, a kind of violent aggression in conflicts. But when you read, “Everyday Belligerence”, what does that mean? Do I always pick a fight with everyone or go berserk at the slightest irk? Not so much. It’s still aggression in a way, yes, but more toned down. Like everyday you do something that’s out of the norm, whether be small or big, that will get you raised eyebrows and mixed opinions from strangers and even friends alike. Like going against a particular social decorum as an act of rebellion. A “belligerence“. So yeah, I guess I’m a rebel in my own little ways. If you read the dictionary though, belligerence does sound exaggerated compared to mine. Or rather, maybe I’m just not using the word properly.
Well tough luck for you, love, because English isn’t my first language. I don’t have the racial obligation to know thy language damn good because I’m not even freaking English! HA.
So I guess you can forgive my belligerence and lack of tact for today? 😛
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And as a thank you for putting up with me and my train-wreck of a multi-subjected essay, here’s a random doodle of mine: “Skinny Fuck”~ ❤
Book of Everyday Belligerence 