I don't believe this.

So. I've always enjoyed being self-centered and boastful in this blog, but this particular post is one where I really actually am freaked out over these days' past blessings.

The place where I teach provides me with a guardian angel (in a form of a fairly attractive man). I've been with him ever since I first entered the place, he trained me to be a teacher and made sure I don't screw up in class. It's rather comforting to know you have somebody you can turn/ask/wail/look for solution to whenever there's a problem, class-wise.

And then, suddenly it happened.
Yesterday I was happily driving along the road when my manager called.
Turns out my dear guidance is quitting, and she wanted me to replace him.
This means I have to be responsible to made sure other teachers don't screw up in class, and I have to train newbies. Modify them into qualified teachers that my company can proudly sent out.
This is a great honor and I should be really, really flattered and thankful.

But here's the thing.
I'm not ready for this yet!!

I'm too young for this. I'm not that good yet. Really. I mean, I still hand in my reports late. I still come to class without preparation. I still get static uncomfortable moments in my classes.
This new task, though exciting and very, very cool, is really intimidating and I'm not handling the challenge very well.
I really don't think I'm the best person for this job. Don't get me wrong, this is something I've always wanted, ever since I started working there. But I do know that I have to reach a certain level first and I'm just not there yet.
This is crazy.

I remember writing this post when I said I've reached one of my dreams (being a teacher) before I'm 20. At that time being offered to guide other teachers was merely a glimpse of a dream. Now I find myself reaching that dream, and guess what?
I'm still not 20 yet! (Had this offer been given three weeks later, this post would not have existed).
I'm nineteen years old. The label "teenager" can still be put upon me. I'm just a kid. I watched Nickelodeon and Disney Channel whenever I have free time. I fascinate over floating soap bubbles. I relate myself to Chandler Bing.
I'm too young to be imparting wisdom to other people!

I know I'm supposed to be grown up and accept this change as an enlighting experience. I know I'm supposed to gloat and tell all my friends about it and start counting the extra money I'll get.
But, quoting a Cathy comic, are any of us ever prepared to watch our dreams came true?

A little something I'd like to pass on.

I had two reasons to write this post: to work up what had been given to me by a devil and as a clarification to a friend in case I explained it in a rather biased way the other day. Smart people should not be misinformed.

What I'm actually making all this shanannigan (oops, there I go again) for is to talk about prejudice.

I'll tell you what I think it is. It's something you do to people whom you're not comfortable with. You pre-judge them. And since you're not comfortable with them, the verdict is not beautiful.
What prejudice does is bringing you to a state of nowhere, where you just cringe at and bitch about someone's behavior. It keeps you from actually understanding why this particular someone might have this kind of behavior in the first place, and you end up making further accusations on how horrible the person is.
In short, think of prejudice as a really, really, bad first impression.

I absolutely loathe prejudice.
I had to live all my child years in it. It was the thing that crumbled me.

There is no logical reason to have prejudice on someone or something. People with painfully narrow minds just do that. It's what they do to things that are outside their safe circle of knowledge.
Some people, as hard as it is to believe, gets confused when they see something new and unusual. Some people don't handle unique things very well, and the easiest way to stop this uncomfortable sense of unknownness is to give a "bad" label. Then you can simply shove it out of the way, because if something's "bad" then there's really no sense in having to understand it, right?

How the hell are we supposed to learn new things then?

Look around you. People are saying, "Things are not what they seem" or "Don't judge a book by its cover" or "I believe people are generally nice" (one of the sickest sentence I heard that actually came out from someone I know) and yet these are the same people who scoffs at other people who smoke pot. Or is not afraid to kiss in public. Or loves Marilyn Manson style.
I mean, jeez! How fake (and stupid) can you be?
How can people do something like that to somebody they don't even know??
I'm disgusted just by thinking of it.

And you know, the weirdest thing is that prejudice benefits absolutely no one and people still do it. For God's sake, even beating people up creates at least pleasure for the jerk who did it. That's why they keep doing it, because it makes them feel better. Try judging someone a jackass and see how much better you'll feel.
Nada.
And you get stupider because you'll never experience that thrills of learning new things about people.

Now please, hear me out. Don't let prejudice stop you from being educated. It is by any extent the worst thing you can do to a stranger. No. Sorry. The worst thing you can do to ANYONE. When you see something you 're not accustomed to, look again. Try looking it in some other way. Look as hard as you can until you can get an informed conclusion on the occurrence. Discuss with the (gasp) "perpetrators". They'll be happy to explain what you might fail to understand. Then see how this piece of story would affect you. In even the most monotonic story of life, there has to be at least 10% that you never heard of. Make a good use of it. Tell it to other people, if necessary. See how much wiser you've gotten?

Everyone has their own story. Aren't you just fascinated to learn all of them while telling your own?
Stop being uncomfortable and start embracing.

Those words.

Probably the most thrilling four sentences I've read ever since I met the man that stole my heart.

When I read them, inside I absolutely shivered.
The chills.
That tingling feeling on my spine, rising up to my head and taking me away from reality for a moment.
The way those words made me kneel and pray that I had something to do with them.
How I wish...that those words were meant for me.
It was beautiful.

As the words flow, I stopped breathing. And start trembling, in and out. I let my emotion take me over....my immense yearning for affection screamed.

For a moment, nothing else matters in this world except to be loved.

I didn't know I could ever felt like that ever again. I really didn't.

Tonight,
All my memories arise.
The feelings I've had.
People I've fancied and loved.
People I've loved.
Everything's just...surreal!
The fresh smile of an old crush,
the agony as my ex come and go,
the chills of a brilliant sensation.

The chills.
This is exactly how powerful words are.

If I wasn't falling for him before, I definitely am now.

Dear diary,

The silence of that memorable night was perfectly amplified by the empty, spacious parking lot where my car was resting.

Gradually I moved in, closing the door beside me,
effortlessly turning the keys in its rightful slot.

Together with the hum of the machine, my mind wanders in a slow tune. Thinking.
About life.
About future.
About my preparation for it.

The exact second when all of it was rumbling through my brain, straining it to its fullest capacity,
Just before I allowed myself to be seduced in doing things I would never have done in my regular sanity,

A face hit my window.
Shocked, my reflex was yelling to me to start yelling...so I did.

But as all things go, the brain overcomes the heart, and I began to realize the familiarity of that face.
Doubtfully, still taken aback, I opened the window.

The face smiled.
So I invited him in.
He said, “I can’t do that.
But here’s something that might help ease your mind.”

Five minutes later, he left. Disappearing suddenly, like most miracles do, after allowing me to overcome my problem.
After he left,
I drove away. With a smile and a floating heart, light as a feather.

Shoot.

I'm losing someone.

I am losing someone.

Just when I was reaching out. JUST when I started to let loose.
Just when I was opening up.
The person is pulling away from me.

I no longer have something to look out to. The one I had (barely anyways, but still a hint of it) just isn't working.
I don't know what I did wrong.
I'm scared.

Am I going to be alone for the rest of my life?

Normal..

..was the title of this movie by HBO I saw the other day.
It was really, really out-of-the-top shocking.

In case you haven't seen it, allow me to fill you in on the story:
A happily married couple (25 years, two children) was put on a real shaker when the husband (delicately played by Tom Wilkinson) confessed that he wants to switch gender. He wants to be a female. Really. And I don't mean just look like one, he wants a full transformation, with hormone injection and surgery and everything.
Needless to say (but I'm still gonna say it anyway), it blew everybody away. The church can't have it. The parents hated it. The children thought it was insane (actually, the teenage daughter kind of liked it, and at one scene even compared breast sizes with his dad. Oh my Lord). And the wife was just NOT accepting it well. To top all of this, he had to face this while still being trapped in a man's body. Why can't everyone see that he just wants to be happy? He's not harming anyone. He still loves his family, he still love his wife, he still love God. Is the price of finding yourself at the fullest worth losing everybody else?

Let's switch p.o.v to the wife here. Personally, anything she did to keep his husband from doing it can pass on as understandable. I mean,
The person she married and had sex with for the last 25 years wants a female genitalia. It was just plain WEIRD. It's like she can no longer respect him as a life partner (because that would make her a lesbian), and for the love of God, she can't even think of him as a person anymore. He's not...normal. Why can't he act like the man she fell in love with?

But, eventually, the wife gives in. They're both still madly in love with and can't live without each other, blah blah blah, and so it ends with a happy life of two women.
Alright, I heard stories like this all the time. Woman trapped in a man's body. I've actually grown to accept it, provided it's a really personal thing and is paid at its own expense.
But I always imagined all this to happen to a person. When it's put in such a condition, a married couple, a family, it's a whole other concept. I imagined what it'll be like if that was my dad. A transexual friend is cool. A female father is too much to think about.
And never have it occured in my little mind that a person can change sexuality but not sexual attraction!! The fact that Ruth (Tom's character) insists that he still loves his wife and would never love a man is another mind boggles for me.
I'm not going to start talking about sexuality here (I already did on Friendster), but it's amazing HOW MUCH IT AFFECTS LIFE and the normality of it. In one night, I was forced to think out of what I thought was my broad, flexible box.

It was all just a little too much. I actually ended up staring bug-eyed to the ceiling that night, which wasn't very good since I had an early busy day the next.

Maybe I'm not as affirmed to this whole controversial-but-true-to-yourself things as I thought.

I miss you.

(Not in a romantic way, though, but I do).

What happened? I still don't understand.
Well, I think I do understand what happened, but I don't understand why we can't start over.
I don't understand why you won't talk to me.
It's been over six months. We grew. So many things have happened since then.

For starters, you found someone.

I found someone too, though in a different way. But if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have found him.
I owe you one, man.
There are many things in the past that I've done and regretted (to this day), but being your friend isn't one of them.
Yes, I have thought about it, and it's true that you and I are not made of the same stuff.
No, I'm not sure that we can be as good friends as we were before.
But you know me. I want what I don't have.

Perhaps you'd like to know why?
One reason.
You introduced me to myself.
You forced me to reflect and say, "Hello, me. Nice to meet you."
And when somebody does that much to my life, I'm not keen on letting that someone be just a "someone I know". No sir.
That's why.

Argh, now I'm being mushy..Look, I don't mean to be all sensitive here, okay? Those days are gone. My intentions are pure. No sneaky stuff.

I miss being your friend.