Wow Philippines!

My Lakbayan grade is C!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out at Lakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.


This is how much of the Philippines I have seen. 7107 Islands. Beautiful!

How to Lose Your Job for 16 Months

Losing ones job is hard enough, but losing ones job by choice is harder.

Thursday was payday.  Fifteen days ago was also payday.  If it wasn't the long lines in the ATM, I would not have noticed these two important dates.  Two months ago, I submitted my resignation letter.  I wasn't fired, I wasn't threatened of being retrenched, I had a good boss, I had flexible time, but I resigned nonetheless.  Quitting my job wasn't a simple decision, it was a choice.  It was a matter of prioritizing and focus. Since it was more of a conviction rather than forced by circumstance, I knew I had to stand up for it.

Band of Murderous Brothers: A Firsthand Account

What kind of environment has UP become that it regularly breeds people who will maim and kill one another because a brod was stared at by someone from a rival fraternity? What kind of a mind-set is required to transform intelligent young scholars into thugs whose claim to fame is the number of rumbles they've been in and "hits" they've done?*

4:50pm. We decided to do our case conference outside the Supervising Lawyers room. It was my team mates birthday so he proposed to treat the team and have our case conference in Shakey's Katipunan instead. We have two team memebers who are from the Upsilon Sigma Phi - the rival fraternity (currently) of Sigma Rho Fraternity.

Engagement

In our offices and classrooms we have way too much compliance and way too little engagement. The former might get you through the day, but only the latter will get you through the night.

- Quoted from a book called Click

I haven't blogged, wrote anything, or got really inspired and excited lately. Maybe because the primary thing that occupies my time is compliance. It will get you through the day -- no matter how dragging the day is -- but come evening you feel nothing but tiredness.

How Do You Mend a Broken Heart

How do you console a grown up man? How do you try to project hope when deep down you know there is none? How do you offer an option when the dead-end is reached?

How?

These are not legal questions. It may not even be questions which a legal intern and a law student asks herself when talking to clients.  Yet, I asked it.

The Importance of Being Busy

"I can't get a life when my heart is not in it"

-Oasis, The Importance of Being Idle

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans"

-John Lennon

Today marks the first day of classes. The last leg of the final lap before graduation and before the bar exams.  Sometimes, people still ask me how I managed to juggle law school, work and getting a life.  I said I don't juggle, I just do.  The juggling is apparent after the fact, but while you're at it, it just happens.

A lot of people complain that they don't have time for anything.  Whether it is running, reading a good book, watching a movie, getting a postgraduate. The reason? They don't start. Doing something and trying to accomplish something is not really a plan, it's a conviction. A conviction to finish what you started, and proceed with what you already have, the rest will fall into place...eventually.

You can't get a life when you're Idle.

- restlessEST

The Ticking Point to Murder

Facebook: all comments, likes, photos, checked.  Phone: all games played.  Laptop: battery at critical low. Two granola bars: eaten. Water bottle: finished. Lecture: still on going...going...going...

Today marks the day I first walked out on a lecture, not because I need to do something of transcendental importance but simply because I couldn't take it anymore.. Thirty minutes of overtime is forgivable, even welcome at times, one hour of overtime is already bordering on the insensitive. One and a half hour marks the ticking point* where tolerance turns to hostility. Two hours marks the second ticking point where expletives are thrown, tables and chairs are banged, and people start walking out.  Two and a half hours is another ticking point where insensitivity turns to cruelty and becomes a violation of human rights. Beyond two and a half hours is the ticking point where hostility turns to serious thoughts of murder.