The Not-so-Sunshine Post #10

Hello dears.

Horrible day. Rahr. I want to crawl into a hole because some of my closest friends don’t understand why I do what I do and I hate having to explain myself all the time. You’re my friends and you’re supposed to love me! I tutored you when you were in training bras! I didn’t judge you when you dated your weird boyfriends! I’m just working for non-profit here! Bah. My cab driver today had engine trouble and left me stranded on one of Manila’s deadliest avenues. And I feel bloated and nauseous after eating cheesecake before yoga class. I poked out my classmate’s eye while attempting the Balancing Stick pose, and I didn’t even care! What’s wrong with me today?!

Aaarghhhh!! Rosa! Fabiano! Oh Master Lee! Yoohoo! Sniff. I need a black belt hug. Come here. We can train on the beach. I promise to stop horsing around. I’m distraught and upset and alone and I need to hit something but I can’t because I can’t wake up at 5 am on a Saturday for taekwondo class and arnis gives me zits. Boo.

I think I’m being made to feel like I eloped with some guy my family and friends don’t approve of, and now I’m a social pariah. Man, I hope this is an indication that I will marry for love and not money.

Ok, deep breath. And release. Aahhhhh.

Look, one reason I never wanted to do the corporate world was that I thought the lot of it was based on common sense – be respectful to your peers, be a team player, give work your 150%, don’t hurt anyone, be nice. I thought that I would be better off in fields where so much is unknown and where actual thought and innovation would have to come into play. Hence why I wanted to do research to begin with.

But I have no regrets about what I learned in university. I loved my major – Molecular Biology and Biotechnology – at that time, I was jumping up and down whenever I heard the word “DNA.” I was with the right class with the right mentor and at the right time. But it wasn’t handed to me just like that. There were only 40 slots for the entire country and these were usually reserved for those who went to specialized science schools. I, offspring of a private Catholic school (Yes, I was a Catholic schoolgirl. Shut up.), didn’t make the cut and was first relocated to Computer Science (Two semesters of programming hell! Dear God. When I dozed off during my final exam, I knew it was time to go.)

After my freshman year, I applied to transfer but they still didn’t want me. Persistent, indignant, and refusing to take no for an answer, I set up a meeting with the Director of the institute. I begged, pleaded, and showed her my writing portfolio, saying that, Ok, I may not have been raised in a laboratory but dang it, I can write! And I can write for you!

It was one of my happier stories. Whatever I lacked in training and intellect, I made up for in balls, and I guess this has been a recurring theme. I ended up doing my thesis in the lab that the Director shared with her best friend. The latter became my mentor and thesis adviser; she would teach me about science and life while I became her ghostwriter. She’s a really good friend of mine now and apparently is a friend of one of WYA’s Board Members. The rest, as they say, is history.

Looking back, there was something good in not getting what you want the first time. It made me value my studies a lot more, because it didn’t come to me easily, and because it made me endure a lot for the sake of the program. (This includes a rather traumatic Calculus class with one of the more heinous and perverted professors in my university. To this day I can’t look at asymptotes and hyperbolas without imagining the things he told us to. Insufferable jerk.)

I guess I’m hoping that because this new desire came after (and during) such a distressing time, then it means it’s the real thing and I will live happily ever after.

There is a faint scar on my left wrist that makes me unable to forget what I experienced in graduate school. (No worries; this wasn’t some suicidal drama – I was rescuing tubes of cell lines that disappeared into the abyss of a liquid nitrogen tank whose temperature was –80 degrees Celsius, and my wrist touched the lid. Ouch, yo! It burns, it burns! Two nice people from the lab next door helped me fish them out with bucket.)

When I glance down at my arm, I would remember that feeling of cold dread when I would enter a lecture and be with my classmates, who, hands down, would have to be one of the most discordant, insecure, cliquish, catty groups of people I have ever come across. (I was the lone Asian girl during my year. People kept asking me about Imelda Marcos’s shoes. Look, I don’t know, ok? I wasn’t born yet.) Or the thought of being in my old lab where I would wonder when I would get yelled at next, and when those degrading sessions would transpire, I was forced to just sit there and take it. Oh, and let’s not forget the rats; I don’t think I need to elaborate on that. It’s why I’m vegetarian, yo.

I have this involuntary fantasy where I face all the people who made me so unhappy there and just scream, “At least some of us have talent, you egotistical hacks! All you ever do is rip off other people’s work and read instruction manuals!” Then I take a bow and happily skip away. Fare thee well, lemmings!

Sheesh. I feel like that kid who was bullied in high school and wants to take a shot at her tormentors during homecoming. Oh well. Writers need to feel everything.

I look back at my really old journals and I feel utter disbelief at seeing how much I’ve changed in terms of what I value now. You know how if you’re in a very competitive academic environment, and at the end of every semester, everyone pulls out a calculator and tries to see what their foreseen average/GPA/end-of-year marks are? Dude, I was one of those number-crunchers; I even had index cards. Eww. I guess I needed graduate school to forcefully eviscerate that part of myself. God, I hate that old version of me now! Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and slap my younger self to her senses. My darling child, any idiot can graduate valedictorian. Rise above your number.


Cathy


P.S. I’m sad and I’m sorry I’m taking this out on you all.