Logic

This is not helping.

To the people who keep giving me advice, thank you. But what I don't understand is, you guys keep telling me to do things that (supposedly) won't hurt me.

I wonder how that feels. I wonder how much hurt I can take in.

If you look at it from my perspective, your curiosity would act up real bad because you don't have "first hand experience". How would I learn if I haven't experienced it yet? I will remain oblivious to the truth. I will forever be prejudiced by my own friends'/family's opinions. How will I learn to trust my own instincts.

I know getting hurt is not exactly something to look forward to, or something I should be happy about. I just want to learn. I want to feel it for myself. Call me a sadist, but, i'd rather hurt than be numb forever.

And what happens if I get hurt for real after being sheltered from everything? Won't that be worse?

I don't fucking know. Whatever. Fuck this.

Should I keep going and find out my limits? Or should I just stop because everyone says so?

Ugh, talk about peer pressure. HAHA.

Trichotillomania

Well, it's a disease. Concerning hair. Haha. It's like the next level of hair pulling/twirling. I'm undiagnosed, but like a normal person who's concerned for her own health, I googled. =)) AND OF COURSE. All the symptoms are there. It's pretty weird.

I usually twirl and pull a section of my hair near my nape, behind my right ear. I twirl and I twirl until I feel satisfied, then I eventually pull the bunch of hair I ended up making. SUPER WEIRD. I don't know why I do it though. It's just an unconscious habit (ironically) that I do whenever I'm sitting or when I'm doing nothing. Oftentimes, my mom just pulls my hand away from my head, and that's only the time when I realize that I'm already doing it.

When that bunch of twirled hair is totally out of control, I take off my hair tie and I loosen the knots, tie my hair again and twirl again. So. Fucking. Weird. Sometimes it hurts because the knots are really tight and I end up pulling a few strands.

That's why most of the time, I prefer my hair untied in order to avoid doing that in public. Because it really is a weird sight o__o I look crazy. HAHAHA. But I end up twirling the ends of my hair just to satisfy the supposedly "unconscious" urge.

They say it's related to stress and OCD. Now that I think about it, I do think about a lot of shit which stresses the fuck out of me. Maybe that's where my over-thinking comes in. I'm not an OC person though. At least I think so. I mean, who doesn't want their things in order? :\ Of course I have to fix my shit so I know where everything is.

Sooooo yeah, I don't know why I'm writing about this. It's 1:15AM here in the Philippines. I can't sleep.  I watched a dance competition a while ago at DLSU. I miss dancing a lot even though I'm no good at it. I usually look like an awkward duck. In my perspective. Welp. Sad life.

And then I saw something I didn't like a few days ago. Hm. It's making me think twice about whatever this is. It's like, when will I ever be good enough. When will you notice me. I don't really give a flying fuck anymore, and I'm just gonna go with the wind. I guess this is better.

Friends

Sometimes we fail to realise that we're such blessed beings. I remember this one time back when I was still in elementary, my sister was the one driving the car, and I was in the passenger's seat. I looked out the window and I suddenly had this random thought: Isn't it cool that we're alive? Like, we get to breathe, think, and walk on our own two feet?

I don't know how and why I came up with that thought. But nevertheless, whenever I look back, I'm glad I thought about it because it changed me.

Well how about realising the fact that you're surrounded by amazing people who treat you like family?--people who make you feel at home, and happy, and warm.

Yesterday was just amazing. For the first time ever, in my whole, entire life, one of my classmates told me that his first impression on me was that I'm nice and I'm someone he can easily talk to and hang out with. MIND. FUCKING. BLOWN.

Let me tell you something about myself. I look like I'm always about to kill someone whenever I don't smile, or when I'm just sitting and staring off into space. HAHA well that's one way to put it. Most people think I'm such a bratty little bitch who snobs everyone she supposedly knows.  But I still think it's because of my semi-thin eyebrows.

FALSE. At least half-false. Or whatever. I'm only that bitchy when someone fucks with me.

So okay. That made my day. I mean helloooo. That was THE first time someone said that about me.

Just a little background on my next "encounter with good people":

There was one time, when me and a couple of my friends were waiting for our next class, I found out that one of them had a cold. After I gave him medicine, he was sort of blowing his nose (or idk) and I saw that his fucking booger landed on his shoulder. My reflexes kicked in, and I tapped it off his shirt. He looked at me and said, "KULANGOT KO YUN HAHAHAHA (that was my booger)" and we all laughed. HAHAHA FUCK. And I simply said, "okay lang 'yan. Kaibigan naman kita. (That's okay. At least you're my friend.)"

Okay, back to the day with many "encounters with good people":

Later that evening, my barkada (group of friends) and I decided to go out for drinks after class. I like doing that. Hanging out, chilling, being with people whom you're comfortable with. Anyway, when one of my friends was drunk, he told me that the time I took his booger off his shirt, he knew that I was a "badass" friend/good person. Like, if ever I want him to beat someone up, he'd be there right away and he'd always have my back.

Seriously. I had to stop the fucking tears from springing out of my eyes because that was just so fucking touching. You know what they say, "the most honest people are drunk ones". I mean, DAMN. People like him still exist? ANOTHER MIND-BLOWN MOMENT. And not to mention, I have my period so I'm currently suffering from PMS, which makes me extra emotional. So when he said that, it took every fibre of my being to stop myself from crying. At that moment, I just felt happy, content, and it seemed like nobody can fuck my life up anymore.

I'm a happy little girl now.

And speaking being a "little girl", guess what. I'm still the youngest in our circle of friends. HAHA FOREVER BUNSO. They were calling me "shobe" (I think it's Chinese for "little sister") while they were accompanying me back to my dorm. Haha it's a pretty cute pet name (haha dafuq), but I keep remembering SHOMBA. So, okay.

I love my friends. They're all cool beans.

Therapy

You hear people say "respect your parents" a lot. We even learned that in school as part of our Christian Living classes where we needed to memorize the Ten Commandments. What if you know it by heart, but you can't practice it?

*commence the sob story*

My father is a descendant of Satan. HAHA just kidding. Basically, he's cruel, inhumane, dirty, and greedy. He's all about having a ton of money, and having a ton of women to fuck. I mean, he's overly generous when it comes to his dick. Once you talk about money with him, he acts like he's such a poor, humble faggot.

His "being a father" logic goes like this:

Once you graduate… Bye bye.

I have no (moral) obligations concerning you after that.

If you come back begging for help from me, I will treat you as if my own blood doesn't run through your veins, and yes, for the nth time, I will not help you.

If you beg one more time, my being "merciful" will be a privilege for you but it will expire after around, let's say, one month. After that, bye bye again.

If you starve to death, it won't be my fault, and my conscience won't be affected.

Welp. That's my dad right there.

So I had a pretty normal childhood. Well, depends on how you define "normal". I didn't grow up having a dad, and that's why I respect my mom so much because she endured everything, up until now. And then he suddenly popped out of nowhere last Christmas, and I had a fucked up brain since then to the point that my mom thought I was possessed, and my sisters thought I needed "help" due to the mental breakdown I had a couple of months back.

At first I couldn't handle the pressure of him being there--so close. I mean, after almost.. Idk, 10923918237 years without him BOOM, HELLO I'M HERE. I just got caught off guard. Eventually, I learned how to be passive. I'm not saying I'm completely "there" yet. I get affected every once in a while, but that's because I care.

That's it. I care about this family, and how we can survive without him. The feeling of being free from his hands and not relying on HIS money to live, will be the ultimate revenge we can have on him.

Our family can still be called a family even without him. Like I said, if he died, we'd even throw a party (and everyone's invited hahaha). Although I sometimes envy some of my friends who have no issues with their parents. Especially with their fathers.

You have no idea how lucky you are if you and your whole family can…

… go out and have worry-less fun.

… talk about anything without ending up having a lecture or even a fight.

… just be together, eat dinner, and watch TV.

… be normal.

How I wish for normalcy. But I guess, this is the norm. People just don't think right these days. They all get their judgements wrong. Admit it though, sometimes, it's hard to tell what's right from what's wrong. Bad things are disguised in pretty things we perceive as "good". Like sex. Loljk. But srsly.

I just hope we can get through this. I hope we can be strong enough despite the future lawsuits we'll eventually have to face. I think. Haha.

For now, I'm just trying to distract myself. The one and ONLY thing I liked about the piles of shit my dad told me a few days ago, is how he emphasised the fact that I shouldn't go home for a while (because I live in a dorm right now for college) because things are going cray over there.

OKAY THEN HAHAHA I'll just go and have the time of my life studying here. And yes, I do care about studying. And occasional drinking. And friends.

This is where I feel normal--here in Manila. This is my new home. Though I do get anxiety attacks (loljk) due to over thinking about what's happening back at my real home (QC) and it's kind of hard to talk to people about this without them thinking I'm an attention whore or if I should just stfu. Well, that's why I write instead.

I still feel pretty paranoid about reverting to my old self, and how I dealt with past issues (which is one big, fucked up blur). But I'm trying to help myself get better as well.

Here's to kids with fucked up families, but who do care about it.

During the (almost) 7 years I've been doing photography, I thought my work was becoming shallow because I just keep taking pictures of myself. But when I look back on the reasons why I take those pictures, I realized that I use photography as my outlet for some emotions that I don't know how to handle. It became another language which only I can understand. For most people, they only think of it as vanity. For me, those are memories which are documented. I guess that's why my photographs are very personal and close to me.

Last summer, I began to cater to a larger crowed. I started getting more clients through the group I'm in called Pipe Dreams. We've had a couple of our friends patronizing our small business, and that made us believe that we can really do this. We can be part of "the industry". We even had our 15 minutes of fame on twitter, even for a couple of hours. "Pipe Dreams" was on the trending list on twitter last June (I think).

Majority of our clients (lol don't worry I won't mention names) consisted of girls who went through heartbreaks. They wanted to feel beautiful again after those nights of tears that never seemed to end, and heavy hearts that felt like stones were inside their chests. They wanted to breathe again after being choked by the pain of being in love.

Girls will always be girls. No matter what you say, we will always want to save our dignity as women. Like men and their egos. Loljk. For us, it's a bit different. Some people may say that these days, it's pretty common for girls to be the ones to chase after boys. So now what. Chivalry is dead? Where the fuck are chivalrous men? Dead. Loljk. I keep saying LOLJK. Loljk.

I still believe in traditions. You know, where guys will be the ones who will desperately chase after girls, and where they'll treat girls like princesses. Do guys like that still exist? When will boys (yes, boys, because there's a difference between boys and men) stop playing around and just go for the girl who they want?

Just food for thought. A lot of my friends have been telling me that I should know my worth as a girl. I realized that I was too easy. I give in all the time--to my feelings, and to the slightest signs of affection. This is one of the times where I wish that my "love life" was like a Korean drama where simple touches mean a lot. Relationships give enough headaches. What more if you don't even have a relationship yet, and you keep making guesses. For girls like me, good luck to us. Stay strong. Hang in there. If that boy really likes you, in time, he'll make his move. HAHAHA yeah.

Superficial

I arrived just in time for my 2:45pm class, if not, maybe I was a few minutes late. Our professor wasn't there yet so okay, I'm safe. Haha actually she doesn't even check the attendance, but I'm pretty anal about being present in all of my classes. After all, what's the point of going to school if you're not going to attend your classes. #petpeeve

Well anyway, that's not what I want to talk about. When I sat down in one of the chairs in the first row, a couple of my guy classmates were fussing over something on Facebook beside me. When I checked to see what it was, they were looking at the profiles of girls whom they supposedly know.

What ticked me off was how they talked about those girls in such a superficial manner. I heard comments like "di naman siya maganda eh (she's not even beautiful)" and "okay lang.. pwede na (she's okay..)" and other pretty degrading stuff. They were sort of looking for prospective girlfriends or something. (Hell, if they knew you talked about women in that manner, wow, good luck in getting girlfriends.)

I'm not a feminist, but being a fellow woman, I got offended for those ladies who didn't know shit about what those guys were saying about them. I mean, I know it's none of my business because I was only eavesdropping, but it makes me wonder how guys see us girls. Sure, call me a hypocrite. I judge men on their appearance too, but that doesn't mean they can get "crossed out of my list".

Maybe it comes with age. Being superficial is such a shallow basis for someone to fall in love. It always will be. I admit, I get crushes on some guys because they're cute or they have a nice physique. It still boils down to the guy's personality.

No wonder some girls get so body-conscious these days. No wonder some girls think they're not enough. No wonder us women feel incredibly insecure about our appearances.

Do we live to be beautiful for just you guys? Do we simply live to be loved? Are we just there for you when you feel like it? Are we here so that you won't feel alone/unloved? What the fuck are we then? Objects? Things? Toys?  Wow.

Fuck that. We are women. We have to be treated with utmost respect because SOMEDAY, we will be the ones who will be carrying the fruit of your fucking seed, and we'll be the ones who will have to go through the pain to get that fucking tree out of our vaginas.

It's not that I'm saying that men will forever be under our power. But if you guys treat us right, you will be rewarded. Seriously. We will love you 10 times back. Because we're women -__- WOMEN.

(Almost done with the rant, don't worry.) It's such a big turn-off. Even if you're one of my friends, and I hear you talking about a girl like that, I'd be scared because who knows what you guys think of me.

Then again, like I always tell myself, "There's no reason to wear make up. Why? You're not here to pick up a boyfriend. You're here for one thing, and one thing only. Your education."

Please, Junessa. Hahaha stop lying to yourself. You've got one extra eye open for that.

True. Haha I'm not going to lie. Basically, I just don't want distractions. I have goals. Plans. Expectations to meet. I want a future. But if my future boyfriend will be good to me, and he won't be a bad influence or whatnot, well.. Hahaha exceptions can be made.

Well, to my future boyfriend:
I hope you will be my first and my last.
I hope we won't ever outgrow each other.
I hope we'd always bring out the best in each other.
I hope you will love my past and my present as much as I will love yours.
I hope you will respect me and my decisions.
I hope for us to become best friends.

Hala, wedding vows? Hahaha. But seriously. I beg of you to treat me right. Treat me like a queen, and you'll forever be my king. WAAAAAT HAHAHAHAHAHA WHAT THE FUCK.

These cheesy lines are like word vomit to me, so I apologize for that.

Welp, I'm watching tonight's Philippine Fashion Week show. I'll be leaving in a few

In Favor of Silence

I'm a person who appreciates silence, occasional isolation, and thinking. A lot. You may find me staring off into space from time to time, but that's because I'm pondering on something, or.. Maybe I slept at around 4am the "night" before.

Thinking makes me feel alive. It makes me feel more human. It's one of the things I appreciate and hate about myself because thinking leads to over thinking. It makes me assume the future, so eventually, I scare myself about what hasn't even happened yet.

To think about thinking. That's new. Right now, my thoughts about it are all jumbled because I have so much to say about it.

I may be one of the girls you know who randomly makes weird noises, the one who's hyperactive, and the one who's always happy. I'm not saying that I'm faking who I really am, but there's a whoooole different side that I don't normally show to people. Sometimes I creep myself out because one moment I'm being totally serious then the next thing I know, I'm laughing so hard about something shallow.

Just a random thought.