The Mac

Conscience: 'You're buying a new Mac that costs about 60k.
Me: 'And your point?'
Conscience: 'WOW.' 

I'm buying it. Not my mom. Not my dad. Me.  Sure, that means not being able to get a new camera. And yeah, that means being poor for so many years. But hell, I need a laptop to survive. My excuse? I need it for my course in college.

Conscience: 'Why not have fun with your MacBook?'
Me: 'It's no fun anymore.'
Conscience: 'iPad 2?'
Me: 'You're kidding, right?'

My MacBook is dead.  Well, it's not really dead dead. I'm just too lazy to have it fixed Thought of getting myself an iPad 2 since it's a lot cheaper. But it doesn't have iMovie. Nah, it has iMovie. It doesn't have all the features of iMovie. And I do need all the features of iMovie. Another thing is that it has almost zero memory. How on earth will I be able to download and store all the things I download? Sorry, I'll spend a lot to be able to download and watch How I Met Your Mother and Modern family.

Conscience: 'Get something that isn't Mac.'
Me: 'I'd rather not buy anything at all.'
Conscience: 'It's cheaper.'
Me: 'Is it as cool as a Mac?'
Conscience: 'Uhm...'

My brother actually said, 'Get a new Mac. Or get something cheaper, but isn't as cool.'

Conscience: 'Why a Mac?'
Me: 'I'm used to it already.'
Conscience: 'Learn to use not-a-Mac.'
Me: 'Ugh.'

I can't even use my parents' laptops. I used to be an expert with Windows. Seriously. But now, I can't even find their files on their laptops. When they need help, I actually use Google to "help them."

Conscience: 'What's your take on, "My Mac is two years old and it died on me. I wanted it to last for ten years!'"
Me: 'Who would want a Mac to last for ten years?!'
Conscience: 'It's expensive.'
Me: 'You want old technology on your Mac for ten years?'
Conscience: 'Well. . .'

MACS DIE.  GADGETS DIE. I don't get people who blame the brand for the death of their gadgets.

Conscience: 'What is so great about a Mac?'
Me: 'What isn't great about a Mac?'

Seriously. 

Me: 'Anything else you want to say?'
Conscience: 'Rich kid.'
Me: 'Thank you.'
Conscience: 'WTF.'

I paid for it myself! 

Conscience: 'Spoiled brat.'

Yes, I am.

I Don't Do Drama

I really don't.

I wish I had worn my shirt that says, 'I don't do drama.' Usually when I use that shirt, people stop and read it. After they read it, they stare at me. If I had used that shirt today, it would have been the perfect tool to be able to tell a person off without exactly saying anything to the person. I would have just had to shove the shirt in front of her face to make sure that she got the message. What exactly is making me so annoyed? A woman and her words.


The church I go to has taught me how to kneel for worship before God. I used to hate kneeling. I never really did it before. Yet when I moved to this church I am now in, the pastor, who happens to be my uncle, told me that kneeling is the best position to worship God. I tried it once and never regretted it. Since that time, it has become my routine to really kneel while giving praise and thanks to God. Almost everyone in church does it so I am rather used to seeing people kneel and am also used to kneeling.


My parents have been attending a workshop these past few days. Yesterday, I didn't join their morning worship. I stayed outside and played games on the laptop. This morning, I was also going to do the same thing. But a person invited me to attend the worship. I had no choice but to attend. Don't get me wrong. I like attending worship. I just didn't think that I would be allowed to attend their worship. 


The worship leader kept on singing slow songs. I sang along during the first song. I didn't really know the lyrics so I just invented some of the words. The first song finished and the second song started. I had found a lyric sheet. So I sang along and I really had the urge to kneel. So I did. I knelt down and put the lyric sheet on the floor. I was there worshiping and praising and just having a thankful heart. The song ended. I stood up. And then this woman comes to me and puts her hands around me. 


What was this woman doing? She was kinda hugging me but it was an uncomfortable hug. I thought that she was praying for me. Maybe she was. But she was (as the Christians call it) speaking in tongues. Are you kidding me?! I kept on trying to get her to stop hugging me. She could have just extended her hand towards me so that she wouldn't have to touch me. After a few minutes, she began praying for me in English. She said something like, 'You don't need to impress God.' Me? Impressing God?


The tears began to fall. No, I wasn't crying because what she said had touched me or because what she said had comforted me. I was crying because I was so damn hurt by what she had told me. If she only knew that if I wanted to impress God I wouldn't have even knelt down in the first place. I would have just stood there and made fun of everyone in that room. Since the woman noticed that I was crying, she shook me and tried to get me 'slain.' I wasn't about ready to get slain when she just hurt me by her really weird words.


The woman opened her mouth to speak again. 'You don't have to be like your parents because you are a different person,' she said. I wanted to tell her something like, 'You know what, you are just really creeping me out. Please just shut the hell up because you aren't making any sense to me at all.' It's easy to assume that I am trying to be like my dad and my mom. But if you know me well enough, you'd also know that I am a totally different person from my parents. Sure, I am also into the arts and education. Yet I am not trying to be like them. I am trying to learn from them and help them in their many projects. Why? Because I want to. 


Let's just say that right now I am really turned off with Christians. The freaking sh*t. There is no right or wrong way to worship. No one else can judge a person's heart except God. If the person really is just kneeling to impress God or people, that's the person's problem. Lots of people think that they have heard from God and that God told them to tell this to some other person. Are you sure about that? You might just be using God's name as an excuse to tell someone what you think about them. People who do that just suck. They really do.


I do not do drama before God.

God and Hugs

Do you believe all the crap about God, the church and his people?

Two Sundays ago, a woman claimed that God told her to hug me. About an hour before she hugged me, I was intently listening to the speaker at Community of Faith something Church. (Yeah, I do not know the name of the church.) As usual, I was sitting cross legged on a chair while eating my breakfast from my lunchbox. I glanced around me once or twice just to check of there were people I knew in the crowd. Each time I glanced around, there was this woman who I would catch staring at me. I would have tried to stare her down if only my neck wouldn't ache afterwards. At first, I thought that it was a coincidence. But when I glanced around a second and a third time, the woman was staring at me.


Was it because of my red hair? Or my piercings? Or the way I sat down? Or because I dress like trash? Or maybe because I eat breakfast in church every Sunday? I had all these made up explanations for why she was staring at me. As soon as the service ended, she approached my dad. Oh, so she knew my dad! I must have looked so rude by staring at her the whole time she was talking to my dad. And then, my dad introduced me to the woman. 'Oh, So and So. This is my daughter, Anna,' my dad said. The woman said something like, 'Oh. Really? I was staring at her the whole time. I have to tell her something.'


My dad left and I was like what the f. I do know that God speaks to people. But God had something for me and he just had to tell it to this girl? Come on. The woman inched closer to me and said, 'God told me to hug you.' Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? My own family knows that I am not into hugging or putting my body near another person's body. I hate anything that has to do with physical touch or contact or whatever you want to call it. But no, this wasn't gonna be a hug from a person. This was a hug from God. 


I leaned in and let the woman hug me. Who the freak am I kidding, I thought. Hug from God? What kind of crap is that? But I figured that if I went along with it, the hug would be over in a few seconds. Besides, if I said no to the hug, I'd get a long sermon from my parents afterwards. I must have looked so confused and so puzzled concerning the hug. And yet, a few seconds before the hug was over, I found myself tearing up.

For me, the hug represented three things in my life.

• God - It was something I had to do in order to come to terms with my faith in God. I am positive that God told the woman to hug me and test me to see if I would allow her near me. God wanted to know if I was the person I claimed to be. I'm sure God was like, 'This Anna says that she believes in me, but she hates people who touch her. Let's see if she how much she really loves me.' By letting this unknown woman hug me, I was telling God that I did in fact believe in him even though he may be so strange at times.
• The Church - Ever since I was a kid, I've hated church. Doesn't matter what church it was, I just really didn't like church. Up to now, it's a struggle. Just moved to a new church and even though the people there are really awesome, I just can't trust them right away. It's hard. And yet there I was, in the middle of the sanctuary, receiving a hug from a woman. They saw me tear up. They saw me open up myself to a stranger. Yeah, I am opening up myself to being a part of a church.

• His People - Just like church, I had issues with religious people. I doubt many of them. I have been rude to a number of pastors in the past. I have made sure never to trust them or even commend them for their preachings. I have questioned everything those said people of God do and are still doing. I told myself that by getting to know people in church, I am making myself vulnerable. I made myself so vulnerable by accepting the hug. And then after hugging that woman, I asked someone to disciple me. It's time to start trusting the people who make church bearable. 

'And yeah, yeah, God is great. And yeah, yeah, God is good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. '

A Misplaced Glass and Laziness

How lazy can people get?

I was at the gym the other day doing my usual workout. After spending thirty minutes on the bike, I ran to the soda counter. Got some soda and stood around while sipping my drink. There's a tray for all the used glasses and cups. People are expected to place their used glasses and cups in the tray and not around it. I was standing a few feet away from the tray getting ready to put my used glass in it when a lady came and blocked my way. If that wasn't bad enough already, she didn't even put her used glass in the tray. She ran off while leaving her used glass a few inches from the tray. Being a stickler for rules, I placed the woman's used glass in the tray before putting my glass in.

This isn't a post to rant about how I had to put the woman's used glass in the tray and wasted a few seconds of my time doing something another person should have done instead. It isn't a rant about what she should have done and what I shouldn't have done for her. I guess this is a rant about what I realized laziness is all about. Trust me, we've all been lazy at least once in our life.

Laziness is a habit. And like all habits, it is formed over a period of time. You can't just wake up one day and decide to be lazy. You start being lazy in the small things and end up being lazy in the big things later on. The bad thing is that you have no idea that you're becoming lazy already. The person who is lazy just thinks that it's natural or that it's alright to be lazy.

Laziness is a mindset. Pwede na yan is the motto of those who are lazy. You see this in students who don't want to do their best. They settle for the passing score instead of aiming high. A maid might say pwede na yan when asked to sweep the floor, but is too lazy to sweep under the furniture. An employee may say pwede na yan when cramming a report and ending up with a crappy PowerPoint presentation. A boss may say pwede na yan when too tired to think. Everyone has said pwede na yan because it is the easiest thing to do and it does not require the person to think of a way to creatively solve the problem at hand.

Laziness is an attitude. An attitude is manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, especially of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes. People say that laziness is an attitude problem. Like all problems, there's a solution to it. Just because one is lazy doesn't mean that the person has to stay that way forever. If the person really wants to get out of being lazy, the person will find a way to do it.

Laziness is sin. Forget about laziness being a habit, a mindset or an attitude. Laziness is sin. I guess when I realized that laziness is sin, that was the only time I made up my mind to get out of it. Just like most sins, laziness is fun. It's fun to just sit around all day doing nothing. Being in sin is easy. Getting out of it and staying out of it is so hard.

So starting today tomorrow I will not be lazy.

Just Between the Person and Me

My parents think this is what will happen tomorrow.

Person: 'So, tell me something about yourself.'
Me: 'I'm Anna. I'm nineteen. I collect Mr. Potato Heads. I eat Nutella.'

And instead of telling the person those important facts, I'll end up telling the person the boring details about myself. I'll tell them that I like Coke and McDo. Maybe I'd let it slip that I drink too much coffee and that I'm a trying hard vegetarian. Or maybe I'll end up telling them that I just watched Glee the movie thingamajig and I have an awful crush on Blaine.

Person: 'Do you enjoy school?'
Me: 'Enjoy school? Are you kidding me?!'

I hate it. Doesn't matter what school I'm in. I just hate school. Doesn't matter if it's regular school or home school. I still hate it. No, I love learning. I love getting cool and amazing grades. Homework actually interests me. Exams make me push myself to my limits. But there's this thing called I-hate-school-because-it's-school. I can't really explain it altogether. I just know that there's a huge part of me that hates school because it's in the morning.

Person: 'Why are you in this school?'
Me: 'Let's just say that this is my dream school.'

Truth? My grandmother went to this school. My aunts went to this school. My mom went to this school. My mom's grandchildren go to this school. This is why I was made to go to this school. It cannot be that my mom's only daughter won't be a graduate of this school. That would just bring shame to my mom. I think she wouldn't allow me back home if I didn't make it in this school. Did I want to go to this school? I wanted to go to this school to shut my mom up and make her proud. Do I love this school? We'll see about that.

Person: 'This is a Catholic school.'
Me: 'That is so cool!'

Seriously, I don't really care. The school can be Catholic, Christian, Muslim or whatever kind of religion there is out there and I will not care. I do however believe that there is a God. I do believe in that God. I have faith. I don't have a religion. I read the Bible. I pray. I worship. I praise. I do so many other things that people associate with the Catholic religion or the Christian religion. I am not a Catholic. I am not a Christian. I just have faith. I believe what there is to believe. I reject whatever goes against the Bible. I respect people who have a religion. I do not try to get people to think the way I think about religion and faith. If they ask, I'll tell them. If they don't, I shut up.

Person: 'Why are you in mass communication?'
Me: '*insert some amazing made up reason here*'

Gusto ko eh! This is what I want. How on earth do you actually explain why you like something? Yeah, don't give me those crap answers saying that you can explain it. I know you can. I'm just not good at explaining why I want mass communication. I've always known that I'd either end up as a teacher or as a person with a degree in mass communication major in something epic. Teacher? My mom is a teacher. My dad is a director and a writer. Since I hate maths (yet get good grades in that subject), I just opted to get mass communications. Really, if I had known that I like philosophy, I'd take that up instead.

Person: 'What are your goals in life?'
Me: 'World peace. Clean air. Happiness. Love. Free WiFi for everyone!'

Free WiFi for everyone. I find it stupid when people ask me this question. I do have goals. I have crazy goals. For example, I want to own a bookstore and a coffee shop. But goals? As in goals like adult goals? You've got to be kidding me! I just go with the flow. If I told you that my goal in life is just to have fun, live my faith and help people, you'd think I'm weird. Normal people want to make money, be famous and have power. I don't want those things. So yes, my goal in life is to have fun and be carefree. I'd like to be able to live my faith in a way that brings glory to my Maker. I'd have fun and live my faith by helping others.  Lame? I don't think so.

Person: 'I'm trying to figure out why you have red hair.'
Me: 'You're telling me you hate it. You want me to dye it black.'

The red hair does not belong to this story. It belongs to some other story. But I will tell you why it's red not why I wanted it to be red. My friends put the dye on my hair and then the car came to pick me up. Instead of going home directly, my mom stopped at Yellow Cab to buy some dinner for herself. The supposedly fifteen minute drive home became a thirty minute drive. Rather, it was still a fifteen minute drive home, but we had to wait another fifteen minutes for the food. In short, I left the dye on my hair for too long. I don't really care that it's red. A lot of people have come up to me to say it's good. This guy I like even went up to me last Sunday and said, 'I like your hair! Keep it that way.'

Person: 'You have five piercings.'
Me: 'I don't have a tattoo.'

Yet. 

Person: 'Is there anything else you want to say?'
Me: 'Thanks. Bye! I'm hungry.'

Earphones and Fishes

I take my earphones off to give my ears some sort of needed rest.

My parents tell me that I'm ruining my ears by listening to music that is directly blasted into these little holes on the side of my head. Honestly, I'd rather ruin my ears than hear what the world has to say about life. I usually find myself feeding music into my ears when I'm in the car heading for somewhere. I like turning the volume really high and ignoring the noise that the world has to offer. 

This afternoon, my parents decided to do some grocery shopping. I decided to go along with them. Grabbed my earphones and jumped into the car. As soon as I sat down, I played some music. In my head, I was singing along to the song Love Like Woe but you wouldn't know that 'cause my face told everyone that I was bored with life. I saw my parents talking. I guessed that they were discussing something that had to do with the upcoming trip to the province. I'm not interested in that kind of talk.


Mom made a gesture that meant  please-take-your-earphones-off-we're-trying-to-have-a-conversation. Against my wishes, I pulled my earphones out of my ears and paused the song that was playing. Oh yeah, they were talking about the trip to the province. All mom could think of saying was, 'Why do you always listen to music in the car?' I wasn't in the mood to explain so I just shrugged my shoulders and looked out the window.


They were talking about the trip to the province again. I tried sounding interested in their conversation. Instead of getting my parents to answer my questions about the trip, I think I just annoyed them with my pretend interest in their conversation. I think that's one of my gifts. I get people so annoyed with me that I actually have grown to love the fact that people find me irritating. It's also one good way to make sure that no one gets close enough to me.


The car stopped. We all got out. Turns out we had to buy gas for the stove or something like that. While papa was talking to the guy, mom was busy going on and on about something. When my earphones aren't in my ears sending music up to my brain, I have learned how to mute whatever other people have to tell me. When I decided to listen to what mom was going on and on about, I realized that she was ranting about my hair.


'You have to dye your hair back to black and get rid of the red color!' she yelled. Why do I have to dye my hair back to black? She continued by saying, 'Your interview is this Saturday. It's a very conservative school. You know that.' Boy, do I ever know that! 'You're going to shock the people there,' she reasoned. Don't I go around shocking everyone I meet? If they don't want to get me in because they judge people by their hair color, then I dunno what kind of standard they have in that place. It's not like I'll dye my hair black just to get accepted.


Got back into the car. We were on our way to the place where we have our laundry done. I kept trying to push my earphones into my ears, but my parents kept talking to me about weird things. They kept trying to include me in their conversation. Being the trying-to-be-good daughter that I am, I just nodded my head, smiled and pretended to be listening. Of course, I was having my own made up conversations with myself in my head. 


The car stopped. Papa got the laundry from the back of the car and brought it down. Mom started talking again. This time she chose to talk about boys, love, friend and regrets. I knew better than to engage in conversation with her about those topics. I went along with what she said and just let her talk. Sometimes, I just let her talk. She doesn't really need someone to talk to. She just needs to talk.

Mom was saying something like, 'There are so many fish in the sea. Why are you guys rushing to catch the wrong one?' I had no heart to tell her that we don't catch the wrong fish. We catch the right fish and it just loses its 'rightness.' No one catches the wrong fish. It's right for that specific moment. If it goes bad, just toss it into the sea and try to catch another one. 

By the time we made it to the grocery store, I just wanted to shut everyone up. Mom was going on and on about my red hair. Papa kept asking me about what I wanted to do in the province. They all had their own ideas about how to answer some stupid forms that they have to send in before the month ends. Sometimes I wish that parents would just shut up. Kids like me don't need to hear everything they talk about. I don't always want to be included in their conversation.

And then I realized why I stick earphones into my ears. I get so tired with life. Sometimes I want to escape living. For a few hours a day, I'd like to think that people are okay with my red hair, that my parents have forgotten my failures and that we all get along with each other. By ignoring the noise of the world, I can hear the noise in my head and make some sense out of it. I've learned that it's easier to fix up your life than try to fix the life of another person. So instead of yelling at my parents and telling them to shut up, I'll just play along and pretend that I'm listening. Hell, I'm listening. I just don't show it.


But for now, since they aren't looking, I'll get my earphones and try to catch another fish.

Fine

This is my nth attempt to try and keep a pubic blog alive.

For some dumb reason, I cannot get myself to last on other blogging sites. I gave up on WordPress because I couldn't understand the fine print. LiveJournal practically ate me alive. Friends have been trying to get me back on Tumblr. Seems that each time I start a Tumblr, I delete it the next day. Blame my memory for reminding me why I hate Tumblr so much. I find myself back on Blogger.

So while I wait for the latest episode of How I Met Your Mother to make its way to my laptop, I shall try my best to entertain myself on this new blog. I keep asking myself, 'Why do I need this blog when I have another one that is seven years old?' I just need a place where I can dump my thoughts and no one will care. 'Don't you already have a place where you can do that?' I ask myself. But this is different. Sure, I tell myself and roll my eyes.


I just turned 19 a few days ago. 'Ayusin mo nga buhay mo!' someone told me jokingly. How do you tell an adult that you cannot fix up your life? You cannot tell your life to stop being messy if that's how your life really should go. Ancient adults think that there's such a thing as fixing-up-your-life. People now know that there is only this-is-my-life-deal-with-it. 

So how messed up is my life at the moment? I've got red hair and people at church think I'm wild. Five piercings doesn't mean that a person is wild or that a person doesn't have faith. Got out of school in the mountains because I was totally unhappy there. Made it in some school in the city. Not a big deal really. There's talk that we're moving out of this valley and into some unknown place. I don't mind this messed up life as long as I turn out fine in the end.

 I will turn out fine.