HANGING IN THE BALANCE

        I am literally counting days this time. It was about 2 weeks ago when I received an unsolicited text message that the Bar Examination results will be released sooner than I expected. Thirty four percent (34%) of the examinees have made it so it says. From that day on, I felt fidgety most of the time wondering whether the purported percentage of those who passed the bar has justified the dubious modification in the sort of examination administered to our batch – the 60% MCQ-type and 40% legal-opinion-writing-and-memorandum-writing-type of the exam. Much to the gusto of most bar candidates (I am having a reservation to include myself), this was made effective and so some, if not all, took the exam as though taking a college entrance test. It goes without saying that it was quite challenging although I suppose some examinees would be surreptitiously celebrating victory which is yet to be proved until the publication of the results thereof.


        Clearly, what concerns me is whether or not I pass the bar, period. Along with the six thousand or so bar candidates flooding the grounds of UST all the way to the rooms designated for them, I was just an anonymous hopeful. I sought not a banner from my humble school waving in the air wishing all the best for its own “barristers” (unlike other schools staging grandiose commendations for their bar candidates on the roadside). Neither did I seek the presence of some friends and family members who insisted in going to the examination venue on the first and the last Sunday of November only to see me dog-tired after the laborious task of hurdling the bar. I only sought the help of God Almighty to give me courage and to uplift the dignity that is left in me to proceed with the test amidst all the blunders I committed along the way.


       Yes, while taking the exam, I couldn’t help but remember all the blunders I committed during my days in the college of law. All the embarrassing and outrageous moments in the classroom while trying to articulate some provisions which I have yet to process in my shrinking brain were all prowling inside of me, dispossessing me of the little confidence I have in myself. Of course these are all exaggerations, but the thing is, you can only do so much when people around you are highly expecting that you will make it, putting you on the pedestal and calling you “attorney” even before you see your name in the roster of newly-passed lawyers. Thoughts like those make me feverish these days. I don’t know how I will be handling the situation comes the “judgment day”.


       But I remain hopeful. My life may be hanging in the balance right now but I remain as hopeful as I can be. What comes next is still something that I have to figure out. May God grant me the strength to accept whatever be the outcome.

NEW CHAPTER

            I found my most recent journal buried in between old books while cleaning my room and reorganizing my stuffs. I have not written anything in it for many months now and obviously, more blank pages are desperately in need to be filled in. The last time I wrote was dated September 2010. I used to write only when I am in despair and frustrated. My thoughts whimsically transcribed only reflect my insecurities and bitterness, and not having the courage to confide it with someone else, my diary has become the shock absorber, the silent witness to all my miseries in life. I want to write again, but those entries get in the way. I’ve had enough of negative life scripts, of self-defeating thoughts about myself.  So I tore those few pages to have a fresh look at my journal. So I am beginning to write again, and  promise that I will be writing less of my grievances and more of what will motivate and inspire me during the day.

             Certainly my blog needs a little revamp as well. My last entry was made two years ago. I have a backlog of unfinished stories which I could not publish yet for lack of words to say. I mean, I am too preoccupied with what was happening to me that time that writing about them means opening myself to unwanted criticisms. I was such a thin-skinned. Perhaps I was not ready to disclose who I really am- a weakling. This time though, I wish to do better and steer clear from negativism and irrational musings that only hamper my growth as a person.

              So what about the new chapter in my life? It is now year 2012. It marks a year of renewal for me. A year of self-reinvention, of becoming a new person. But that does not happen overnight. I still acknowledge the fact that new more challenges, heartaches and defeats will come to test me. I am very much aware that I am in the midst of the biggest battle in my life so far- that of passing the bar and becoming a full-fledged lawyer. (When the right time comes, I also intend to reserve a blog entry entirely on this subject- my struggles during the college of law days, the nerve-racking recitations held by formidable law professors and the rigorous, mind-shattering study of the law to name a few). I just hope and pray that all my efforts (and my mother’s sacrifices) will pay off. Anyway, the result of the bar exam is reported to be released end of February or early March. I am hoping for the best and bracing myself for the worst comes that “judgment day”. For now, I remain hopeful, knowing that, whatever be the outcome, the Lord God will not forsake me and that He has something else in store for me. Actually I had a bad dream that I failed the test. In that dream - so real as it seems - I kept reassuring myself that it was alright and I would still have another chance to redeem myself. Romantic it may be, but that is exactly the kind of attitude I want to take on for the rest of the year.

              Another thing that concerns me these days is to find a job that I will consider as a career for a long time. I am thinking of a fallback suppose I don’t pass the bar (I am just being realistic). So I distributed a number of applications letters and resumes to several employers, mostly in the government agencies where I wish to work someday. I am choosing the government service for a number of reasons, one of which is apparently for financial security, with all the benefits attached to the tenure and all. However, that does not mean I have lost all my idealisms. I will never. The thing is, corruption takes place everywhere; it is up to us to allow ourselves to be consumed thus, or to be an agent of transformation and development that our country hopes us to be. As far as I am concerned, I choose the second, but for now I need to get a real job soon.

              So begins the new chapter in my life. I want to start it right as well as end it right. A line in a famous song goes: “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be. The future is not ours to see…” True enough. Now the song keeps on playing inside my head as I wait on the future to unfold itself.