domestic dispute

while taking an afternoon nap the other day, i was awakened by loud voices of two people shouting at each other. it was our driver and our helper. i went downstairs to see what the bickering was all about only to see my cousin helping my 80-year-old lola get up; she fell while trying to stop the driver from punching the helper.

i was infuriated. two grown-up women, people you expect to be mature enough, engaged in a petty squabble inside our house, right in front of my lola, who ended up getting hurt in the process. if something bad had happened to her, they would've been spending the night in luneta.

apparently, it started when the driver made a snide remark while the helper was passing by. when the latter confronted her, the driver got upset, brought up long-standing grudges and challenged her to a fistfight. not getting what she wanted, she lunged at the helper and would've hit her were it not for my lola and my cousin who rushed to restrain her. all three of them fell on the floor. but the bickering went on, and wouldn't have stopped had i not told them to. they finally ended it but not before the driver threatened the helper to watch her back.

now it's the helper who's out of the house. probably frightened for her own safety, she asked permission to stay with a relative for the meantime while my aunt's not around (i'm living in my aunt's house kasi). i was told she's not coming back for so long as the driver is still here.

the driver meanwhile, is still with us. how fair is that?

lest you mistake me for being biased towards the helper, i don't actually have favorites. both have been kind to me. the helper has been serving me breakfast for the past three years. the driver drops me off at the train station every morning on my way to school.

in fact, i was surprised something like that had to happen. we've always treated our housemates as part of the family. we dine with them in one table, share the same food with them, and on christmas, we exchange gifts with them. it's a pity it is they who have to have problems with each other.

i told my aunt it's clear who was at fault. regardless of the cause, it's unforgivable when one starts hitting another person. shout at a person if you have to but never, never lay hands on another person. guess what, the driver attempted to do just that. she even threatened to kill the helper. why is she that angry? she gave me a couple of reasons, mentioning old issues, but really too petty in my opinion to warrant the aggression she showed.

but alas, the driver is more valuable at this point for my aunt. she couldn't fire her. so we can't ask the helper to come back. instead, we're getting a new one.

so that's how we decide things eh? not on who's right or wrong but on what's practical? and why do i get the sense that we're actually rewarding the aggressor?

but of course, i have to oblige.

i can't believe an injustice has just taken place, inside our own house, and there's nothing i can do about it.

mind floating

i was unusually relaxed yesterday, the day of our evidence finals. after attempting to memorize the provisions, i didn't bother to go back to the cases, or even review the annotations. i was lounging in bed from time to time. i even left the house earlier than usual. but something told me something's amiss. something was bound to go wrong...somewhere.

i found out what went wrong when i got to philcoa. i just got off the jeep when i checked my bag...shoot, my wallet's not there! i checked my purse and counted the coins, 1...2...3...4...4.50. oh no, i can't even get to malcolm. i checked my bag again. no signs of my wallet. great. this is just the best time to forget your wallet, one hour before your final exam.

at least i was in philcoa, i thought. i could always, err, walk to malcolm? not exactly a pleasant option but at least that's a feasible last resort.

good thing my brother was in UP at that time for a training in red cross. i figured he must be done in a while so i asked him if he could drop by philcoa and spare me some bucks. just then, a miracle happened: he did. it's one of those days when it's good to have a brother. i can't even ask him to do anything at home, but at least he's there when you badly need some...cash hehe.

my friends told me i should've texted them so they could fetch me. that, i thought, was an option but it was too much of a hassle for them considering that they're also preparing for an exam so i didn't want to bother them. besides, my brother was around.

anyway, i arrived at malcolm just before 6 when the exam was supposed to start. ma'am gave us an extra hour by coming in at around 7, and gave us an extra hour for the exam so we ended at 10. you'd know when the day really gets weird when, in the middle of the preliminaries for the exam, i asked yvette, "hindi mo ba mami-miss si ma'am?" um, just what exactly did i say?

see, i wasn't really relaxed at all, i was out of my mind the whole time. probably because at the back of my mind, i was thinking about the two handwritten integrated outlines due this morning which i imagined to be about 20 long pages in length, a page of which i haven't even started writing as of last night. as with any other paper due this sem, it was a buzzerbeater finish. it was due 11am. i passed mine at 11:01, but the lady was kind enough to accept it. just my luck.

the evidence exam last night was fine, i think. i finished it so i think it was fine. but you can't really be sure.

after submitting my bluebook however, ma'am said something that really freaked me out, in a nice way. it made me wonder, how much do professors know about their students? i thought you can be anonymous in front of your prof if you really want to. hindi pala. hmmm, pano nya kaya nalaman yun?

anyway, i have 70 handwritten digests and 1 more exam to go before sembreak. sembreak here i come!

last stretch

this sem is probably the worst i've had so far. everything seemed to pass by like a whirl. before i knew it, it's the end of the sem and there's plenty of catching up to do.

the day my family and i left for surigao to attend my lolo's wake, i found myself reading at the airport while waiting for the plane, reading during the flight, reading while aboard a van for a 3-hour road trip on the way to our town, reading during the wake, reading still the next day while on my way back to the airport, in the plane and while on a cab straight to a make-up class that lasted til 11pm. it was my first trip in more than a decade with my whole family (we somehow travelled separately) and wow, i wasn't there at all. they stayed behind for the burial; i flew back early to prepare for a midterm exam in evidence. how inhuman.

then came september, bar examinations month. with bar operations in full swing and with three exams on that month, all hell broke loose. there was just no way to study for the exams on weekends so i used what little time i had during the week, missing some classes if i had to, but there's just never enough time!

now, with final exams setting in, i still have tons of things to finish: case digests for about a hundred cases and some integrated outlines, apart from studying of course.

it doesn't help that i find myself in between bouts of not wanting to study at all these days. must be signs of burn out. last wednesday, i had to force myself to finish the assignment for evidence, which i'm glad i did coz i got called the next day for a 3-hour recit (buti na lang i was reciting with yvette). just my luck. i got called at around 7.30 pm, and i kept glancing at the watch, 8, 9, 10, but ma'am just wouldn't stop. we finished at almost 11pm. gutom na ako, masakit na ulo ko, pagod na ako but i did learn a lot. ma'am is officially my favorite prof. (hmm...i somehow have this penchant for finding the good side in those who terrorize others, with some exceptions)

to be fair, this sem isn't that bad at all. the bar operations went well, without a hitch, i think. thanks to the leadership of py and all the volunteers of barops. i didn't teach this sem and i gave up an RA job because i knew it would be very difficult to joggle all those things together. i'm glad everything turned out well.

and i'm even happier someone didn't give up on me while i was going through all these. babawi ako. can't wait for this sem to be over!