Unravel Life 2

Fact: This is a beginning of a new me.

Summer, in a nutshell, was a little bit of that, a little bit of this.

My stay in Davao was uber-magnificent, which could only be compared by my brother's frequent restaurant hopping and Thursday nights at UPLB. Mother is always complaining about how thin I look (she suspects it had something to do with my long, dirty hair- something the Parentia Familia Sentillas highly disapproves of), and my Father and I are always on each other's tails. And let's not forget my nice brother- he who cooked delicious meals everytime I complain that the worms in my stomach are planning to revolt against my ironclad rule over them.

Yet it seems that I have to leave this safe sanctuary a little bit earlier than expected (a month, actually), as I still have my admission exam in Diliman to get over with.

So, May 12- the day of my BA Comparative Literature admission exam. I quickly made a friend in the examination room- a bubbly young man whose name had escaped my thoughts. I was really feeling confident that day, confidence resulted from the dangerous blend of pride, high expectations and other things I hate to speak of. So, with this confidence at hand and my trusty black pen on the other, I set off to take the exam.

It wasn’t easy- but it wasn’t that difficult either. There were only two questions, each one contributing half of the total grade. It wasn't easy because (1) it's an essay exam, and I am supposed to fill up a blue book or else face eternal damnation, and (2) I have to rack my brains remembering what my professor taught us back in my HUM 1 and FIL 20 days. However, it wasn’t that difficult either- as the same professor had exposed us to these kind of exams . If you really want to know, here are the two questions listed:

(1) Discuss one critical approach employed in the study of literary texts. Identify this approach and give its axiomatics (e.g., nature of literature, the relationship between literature and other social practices, role of author, etc.), its key terms/categories/critical terms, and its main exponents (theorists or critics); and

(2) write a critical essay applying the critical approach discussed above to the story “Karma.”

I began to write down everything my mind catches, using Formalism’s defamiliarization initiative as my spearhead and Professor Dumlao’s technique of breaking the text into little weenie parts and criticize them at the barest perspective as my approach. It took me about an hour and a half to finish the whole essay, and with confidence and mind as happy as a sunny plain, I passed my blue book to the proctor.

I failed.

I first believed it was a joke, a terrible joke, stop kidding around, will ya? It couldn’t be. I asked the Department Secretary again- with my hands shaking and my heart beating like an Indian drum. And with a voice darkened only by the Devil itself, the same response reached my ears.

“No one passed the exam.”

My second initial response was brief acceptance. OK, I told myself, so they rejected you. At least you’re going back to your friends in Los Banos, ayt? Come on, bring that smile up, and show them how brave you are to face the truth. Did I see a smile just now? Good, good. Keep that up, Kenneth, and let’s call Father and tell him the bad news.

And then I cried. I wasn’t a total breakdown as I expected it to be, yet it’s still a cry nevertheless. I called my father, telling him to ‘call them, call them, maybe they’ll be afraid of you and tell you the truth that I passed’. As I leaned on the telephone booth in front of what I deceived myself to be my future college, eyes as red on a field of roses and hands folded into fists, people began to look at me with curiosity and interest. Never badly in my life do I want to show them my middle finger, and tell them to fuck off and mind their own businesses.

The third response was the feeling of being caught in a nightmare. As reality began to dawn on me, the more I began to lie to myself that it’s just all a dream. Yet this feeling quickly evaporates, leaving me with the truth I don’t want to acknowledge before in my past- that I am a mortal like everyone else in this world, that I am no God that can do everything with anything.

The fourth and penultimate response was one of sadness and relief. In order to compensate with the depression that was flowing in my bloodstream, my mind began to weigh down how much do I really want to transfer, and why. Can’t I study literature in Communication Arts? Won’t it be the best for your health if you live in a greener place? Aren’t you glad to be in a school where there’s an actual mountain inside the premises?! Yes, I know- some of my arguments are feeble, even pathetic, but it did make me cozy and happy- at least for a little while.

The final response was of acceptance, with episodes of depression getting lesser and lesser. This is the state where I am now. Having accepted the truth, I began to go back to my happy old self- the Kenneth everyone knows. Yet, of course, there’s that part of me that will never heal- the part whose only desire in life is to get revenge and laugh as it destroys everything that rejected it in the past…

Nah. Whatever.

Summer’s still not over, though. No more with the whines and cries, baby, because it’s time to have some fun. Well, see ya, dear reader. Thanks for having the patience to read through all this dull post, and have fun with the last days of summer. ^_^