Birthday celebration

Hey there! This is my first post in this blog as a 21 year old. Here’s to hoping I’ve become mature-er by a few percent.

So yesterday was my 21st birthday. A day before that, I had a mini celebration at home with a lot of food. It was also my first time handling the cooking and the preparing. Before, we used to have a house-keeper who would usually cook our food for birthdays, but this year I was the one who mostly did the cooking. There were two of us who celebrated. Our new house-keeper’s birthday was the day after mine (Today in fact). So I thought we should just have one celebration. Then, on my actual birthday, I went to Manila Ocean Park with my sisters and a friend.

I stated before that I wanted to go bowling on my birthday but a few days before my actual birthday, my sister suggested the aquarium. I’ve been wanting to go to Manila Ocean Park for years. And I also wanted to see the penguins. So I opted for that instead. It was a lot of fun. Originally we planned on going to only 2 attractions which were the Sea Lion show and the penguins. But it seems Ocean park doesn’t sell individual tickets anymore, everything was in a package. So I had to buy a ticket which included the sea lion show. Luckily, the penguin tickets were sold individually. So instead of spending a few hours there, we ended up spending 5 hours. How about that?

Poverty

I don’t mean to sound like a horrible person, but sometimes, poor people seem manipulative nowadays. My family is not rich, we’re more average. We have money but enough for education and what we need. There were times we fret about where to find money but we still managed. We had our ups and downs.

We had a laundry-lady since we were young up till I was about 18. She came to our house every Saturdays to wash our clothes and iron them as well. She’s a good person. Even though I felt betrayed that one time when my mum started living in another country, I can still say that she’s someone I can trust, since I’ve known her for so long and she’s known me since I was a baby. She’s pretty loyal too. We lived somewhere far away before and had to move to where we’re currently living now, and she still managed to find our new house to work for us. About a year ago she fell ill. I was told she collapsed and now her body can’t move. Not many families in the Philippines are rich or well off. They happen to be the struggling kind of family. She has a lot of children, most are girls and some of them got pregnant. I don’t know why but she’s quite unlucky with her children. None of them care enough for her. I mean, you know you’re mother is working hard to earn so that you get to eat something for the week and you do nothing to help? Some of them (we kinda grew up together) are just talk. Which kind of pisses m off.

So since she’s terribly ill, her husband asked if he could borrow some money from us. And since we’ve known her for so long, my mother told her husband that he should just consider the money she’s giving as help instead of a debt. I wasn’t aware that she’s already given them money twice. I however am aware of how much. Let’s not spill it out here in public.

So what’s the problem? Well my mother happens to be back to Abu Dhabi now and us siblings are the ones left at home with everything. Which means, I have to deal with our laundry-lady’s problem. Normally, I wouldn’t be bitching about something like this because that would be incredibly mean of me. But I mean, come on! We’ve got our own money problems as well. I have to pay for my tuition because I’m going back to school again. Same for both my sisters. That’s 3 tuition fees! And don’t even get me started at the bills and the monthly budget. Just because we live in a big house, doesn’t mean we spit money from our mouths. I’m seriously telling you this now, the house is just a facade. Big house but poor people inside. Heck I can’t even save up for my own well fare because I have no money for shizzle dizzle.

The real issue here is actually one of her daughters. Arianne. She’s the one who calls us about the money matter. And I hate her tone of speaking when she calls. It’s like we’re obligated by her to give money because we’ve known her mother for more than 20 years and that her mother is sick. Ugh! I already feel bad having to tell her that I can’t be sure that we have money to give because of our own money issues. Does she have to speak that way? And what’s up with their family? Don’t they have anyone else to ask money from? We’re not the bank okay? And if you really care, you would go find a job and work your ass off!

Human expiration

Yesterday was another normal day until I heard the news that someone committed suicide at my former university. He’s my junior. And although I don’t personally know him, he and I share a lot of friends, so somehow his death affects me. He jumped from the 11th floor of our building and landed on a neighbouring house’s roof. He was alive for a couple of hours after bringing to the hospital but soon reached his end.

I don’t know why but stories like these affect me so much. Even if I don’t know the person, hearing that he died makes me sad and think about why it happened. I guess I’m empathetic enough when it comes to things like that. I mean, it’s death we’re talking about here. More over it’s suicide. I respect that he wanted to end his life that way, but it’s sad to think about. In a way, it’s unfair. I know that he owns his life but I think about his family. They will have to go through something painful. Children are not supposed to go before their parents. I also think about the reason behind his suicide. Before he committed suicide, he posted a question in debate.org. It went something like “Does someone have the right to commit suicide if they want to?“. He also posted “I want to sleep almost forever” in a social networking site. Twitter I presume.

The thing about suicide is that you will never know the reason why they did it except if they left a letter or a message. I don’t know if he left any letter to his parents or friends, but whatever his reason was, I hope he’s happy with his decision. I don’t want to take him as someone who suffers from depression because from what I see from my friends, he seems to be really happy. But then who’s to say he’s not suffering deep inside?

Humans are so complex. I know I shouldn’t be bothering myself with things like these, but sometimes, I just want to know what a person is thinking about deep inside… I’m sad.

According to professors and friends, he was a talented, artistic child who was supposed to be graduating this June. He has a nice future ahead of him. I just feel sad that all of what he experienced ended up to this… RIP fellow Benildean.