lights will guide you home.

Wouldn't it be great
if everyone
(or at least everyone who mattered)
got born and died at the same time, went to high school at the same time, graduated together, did college together, had fun together, graduated from that at the same time, worked at the same time, married and loved and had kids at the same time.
Then no one would ever have to leave, and no one would have to be left behind.

 

is a show about ordinary people discovering extraordinary capabilities. It's written and shot like a damn good comic, and it's brilliant. 

I think we all need that, the capacity to recognize what is special within ourselves, the ability to transform our differences and difficulties into something creative and real. 

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Last week May commented about how some people seem to go through life without much heartache or pain, in general. They are the people who know and get what they want early in life, who don't experience too many tragedies (perhaps only one or two in a lifetime) and they are relatively happy the rest of the way. She says that the pain is necessary for any person to fully appreciate what life really is, and that those kinds of people never really know the value of what they have, since they never had the opportunity to lose it. I agree with her, although sometimes, I still think those kinds of people are the lucky ones. 

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And because I seem to be out of words lately, let me just post a few words I'm ripping off from someone else's blog (someone I know who doesn't know i know him): 
There is a word in Sanskrit, a central concept in Buddhism, karuna - the capacity to transform pain and suffering to joy. I guess that’s the word for what I saw. The unwanted things in ones life can be a source of compassion. Even your pain is part of your treasure.

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I've been running the past couple of weeks, around once or twice a week. Every morning on a day when I'll be running I wake up excited. I pack my shoes and my socks and an extra shirt among other things, and I can't wait for class to be over and for dusk to fall. January evenings are still relatively cool but not chilly. I run alone, when the evening is settling in and the students are on their way home or closing the day with friends, two rounds on the oval, trees and lampposts to my left and the road to my right. I try to run to the point of exhaustion, then walk, then run again. It's nice not having to think all the time. 

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 85% Hulk 85% Robin 75% Green Lantern 75% Superman 70% The Flash 70% Wonder Woman 65% Batman 60% Supergirl 60% Catwoman 60% Iron Man 55%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Your results:
You are Mystique

Mystique 80% Venom 66% Catwoman 64% Apocalypse 64% The Joker 58% Dark Phoenix 58% Poison Ivy 56% Riddler 54% Juggernaut 52% Magneto 49% Dr. Doom 48% Mr. Freeze 47% Lex Luthor 40% Green Goblin 40% Two-Face 40% Kingpin 38%

Sometimes motherly, sometimes a beautiful companion, but most of the time a deceiving vixen.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

12. And finally, have more adventures! =)

11. Not to lose faith and idealism, but to just take better care of my heart.

I will be 30 in 5 years. And I don't even have a five year plan!! At a recent dinner with some lovely high school friends, the question was going around: "What do you want to be in five years?" And while most answers revolved around marriage and kids and career promotions, I unabashedly answered:
"Mayaman,
na mayaman,
na mayaman." 

Amen!

I was never the kind of person who valued money that much, or who thought about it that much. I never believed that money was central to happiness and contentment. I always believed instead that as long as you loved your work, and you don't chase after the money alone, the money will definitely come. That the love of money (not money itself) is the root of evil. That the universe (how naive can I get?) will take care of you and provide you with the opportunities as long as you stay open and take care of your life and the people around you. But this news of being 30 very soon and seeing certain people giving up relationships and not being happy because of the quest for money has really, really, upset my balance. I don't know what to do. I have this very clear image of myself being 30 and still scrimping and saving my way through everything (because I'm too proud to ever ask for money) while everyone else is spending left and right on pretty, pretty things. And how am I supposed to fulfill my dreams of building institutions and empires and legacies and beautiful homes and travelling and all that if I don't ever have the money to do it? Sigh. I guess after a while, and maybe 25 is the right (if not late) age to do it, it's time to stop being naive.

A very modest and heavily trimmed down list:
1. Go out with HS and other friends at least 6 times a year.
2. Travel to somewhere new.
3. Jog (or something) at least once a week.
4. Read at least 12 non-law related books.
5. Write more, and take more pictures.
6. Get into moot.
7. Contribute to PLJ.
8. Get 1.75.
9. New project.
10. Stop procrastinating. Be prepared everyday. Get everything done on time. 


The truth is, I just feel so old. 


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Here's a little something for the new year, in between heartbreaks: 

Otherwise known as the year I run out of excuses for anything and everything. For the things I should own up to by now, the things I should have done by now, the things about which I actually do know better by now. 25. No more excuses, but a lot of regret. 24 never seemed that old, but 25 is just plain undeniable. It's the point of no return, to adulthood and a goodbye to all the issues I really should've resolved by now. It's too fast, too soon, I haven't quite lived yet. But then I've been saying that for years and now it has finally caught up with me. And no matter how old or young everyone else perceives me to be, there's no escaping the truth, and the truth is that I am now 25.

Only A Broken Heart is Whole

Education is not a process that continues for some years and then ends. Education has only one sovereign purpose: to prepare one for more education. All else is subsidiary to this. Education should create hungers spiritual, moral, and aesthetic hungers for value.

There is a beautiful saying that comes to us from Hasidic lore: There is only one thing that is whole in the entire world, and that is a broken heart.

Reflect for a moment: Here is a world that has not yet been redeemed, a world in which there is tragedy at the root of things. How could a moral and sensitive man walk about with a heart that is not broken?

The broken-hearted paradoxically and profoundly are the whole hearted. And the task of education should be to break your heart. Unless it breaks your heart it is a false education, a pseudo-education. The gift of education will be a heart that is whole..

-Israel Knox-

Drink wine, this is life eternal.
This, all that life can give to you.
It is the season for wine, roses, and drunken friends.
Be happy for this moment,
This moment is your life.

- Excerpt from “The Rubaiyat” by Omar Khayam