Gotta find my missing piece...

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Waterworks

My dad and I got into a minor accident this morning on the way to school. He was just making a right turn into Katipunan, from the street of KFC. He had his head turned, watching the traffic coming in from UP, and he didn't see the jeep parked a few feet away from the corner of KFC. I saw it too late. Seconds after I shouted out, we hit, the side of the car smashing right into the edge of the jeep. I think part of the headlights, which had just been fixed, was smashed, and there's a dent right by the door of the passenger's side, which was why I couldn't open the door when I was getting out by the overpass.

I found out from Manang Nellie that my dad felt bad when he got home and he wasn't speaking, especially since he can't really blame it on the jeepney driver, except, perhaps, for parking so near the corner. It's really too bad, especially since he was in such a good mood this morning. Which is why I felt bad. If not for me, he wouldn't have been making a right turn into that street at that moment. After all, I was the one who got him away from the dinner table in the middle of breakfast to take me to the overpass. Maybe if I'd dragged him out earlier, or later, we would have missed that jeep. Or maybe if I'd insisted taking the trike instead...but I've long since stopped bothering because nothing I say can convince my dad to let me take the trike when he or Kuya Joey is there to drive me anyway. And it was hard finding a tricycle at 7:15 in the morning anyway...and I was already late, and I had a quiz in Philo, so I couldn't waste time walking to school.

Fine, it was just a minor accident. No one was hurt. But the car doesn't have insurance, and we just had it fixed. It still will cost a lotta money. Most of all, I hate it when dad's in a bad mood...and that accident must have really put a dent on his day (pun unintended). So, yes, it made me feel bad.

________________________________

I finally had my guidance test interpretation late this morning with Ma'am Belle. It was about that part of the test wherein we had to write a story on the pictures shown for eight minutes each. I couldn't remember what I'd written on that test, and I wanted to find out what they are and what the counselors got out of them, so I signed up for it.

I'm aggressive--that's what Ma'am Belle said. By aggressive, she meant that when I get mad, I lash out, physically or verbally. In my case, verbally. Fine, I admit to that. She said that it must be because I keep things bottled up inside for so long that when things really go wrong, I lose my temper and end up shouting.

I would rather be the follower than the leader. Yeah, that's very true, too. I hate being leader of anything, which is why I'm having this ongoing battle with both Yumi and Jace, who made me co-head of the book committee for the Fine Arts Festival next year. I'm not a good leader. More often than not, I don't know how to assert myself and direct people to do whatever, and I end up just doing things myself without bothering asking anyone else to do them.

I have the tendency to be uncertain and anxious. Yeah to both. I'm always uncertain and anxious. About my course, my future, my family, my friends, my life--everything. I'm always second-guessing everything, and I have a tendency to obsess about certain events that had happened in the past, when the best thing is to just let things go and forget about them. But there you go.

I am not a risk-taker. Never claimed to be. I like to be on the safe side.

I am not a social person. I'm more comfortable with few select friends. Ditto to that. I'm just not a social butterfly.

There are many other things that Ma'am Belle told me she got out of the test, but I can't remember just what right now. But they all circled back to one thing anyway. I lack self-confidence. Oh, yeah, we talked about that practically the entire time, because every issue I seem to have is rooted to my unbelievable lack of self-confidence and self-appreciation, according to Ma'am Belle. And yeah, I can't exactly dispute that analysis. I would be the first person to tell anyone that I have no confidence in myself and my abilities.

I'd promised myself before that I would get out of the Ma'am Belle's office, dry-eyed and calm. But, as the old saying goes, promises are meant to be broken. What can I say? I couldn't stop the waterworks when we started talking about my family, and how my parents seem to want to keep me under their wings. Yumi and I talked about this before. I think both our parents had the same parenting seminar or something. They're so alike. Anyway, I ended up talking about how they never seem ready to let me go and do things myself, even things as basic as going to school by myself. I found myself talking about my dad's tendency to tell me that someday I would write a book on plants or horticulture or such. And I realized just why that always bothered me so much. Writing is one of the few things that I've been able to call my own. The one thing that belongs to me. But my dad's obsession with telling me what to write makes me feel as if he's taking over that one thing that's mine. As if, even in writing, I cannot escape my parents' landscaping business. It's one of the reason why I resent the store so much. And maybe one of the reasons why I don't write so much anymore. Before, my dad didn't use to tell me what he expects me to write about someday. But over the past few years, it's all he tells me.

So, there you go. I ended up being given a pack of tissue again.

And I never did find out what I'd written about on that test.

# Lyn found a missing piece @ 2:04 PM

Comments:
eh kasi... "strict ang parents natin"

actually, ganon din nangyari sa guidance ko. ang nalaman ko lang about my TAT was that almost all of my main characters were guys. then everything i cried about jumped from that "guy" issue.

that's why we're making you co-head. if you haven't experience that experience, how will you experience that experience? hehe... kaya mo yan edlyn. yah can do it. i believe in you. promise.

# posted by Anonymous : 10:45 PM

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