This is a day in life's life

5 am.

I unwillingly woke up to the upsetting sound of the alarm clock so I headed straight down to the shower room to bathe myself and do my daily rituals like stretching, brushing my teeth, doing monologues on my own and some guys’ stuff like you know what I’m referring to. But then again, I still need to prepare for another tiring day in school. While sitting on the couch, waiting for my brain to come alive, the distant smell of my neighbor’s ‘sinangag’ flirts with my nose. Even the crow of his rooster became music to my lethargic ears.

As I walk closer to the terminal that would take me away from the pseudo-serenity of our neighborhood in daybreak, I managed to take in the breezy miasma of the morning moist that rest about the subdivision. I know that as soon as I lose sight of its splendor, it is now goodbye to tranquility and hello to bedlam.

And I’m right. As soon as the shabby old tricycle makes a turn toward the even busier street further down the road, my beautiful thoughts crash down --- hard.

And there it is. The typical vista of today’s city streets: men lining up their fake DVD goods; women exhibiting their body masterpiece through fashion; teenage boys and girls smoking cigarettes for breakfast; traffic enforcers who makes travel more complicated; students patiently waiting for jeepneys; and if you’re lucky like me, you could catch a glimpse of a disabled man crawling along the highway, two feet away from the gutter, waving his hands with a face so glum.

Arriving at school, you’ll readily notice that the atmosphere inside the campus is far from what is happening in reality. Within the CEAT Building and Square Canteen, happy thoughts are present; giggles and smiles are exchange. For a moment, I could forget poverty and focus on my studies.

The much- said phrase, “DOTA na tayo‼” from most of the students elicits a reaction from my famished stomach wherein it means, ‘it’s time to eat. While savoring my freshly cooked ‘tapsilog’ at Jefcees, unexpected saddening things tend to fall in place. But I guess what dismay me the most is the normality of it all. A great example would be seeing someone flicking that ‘yosi’ in front of you, knowing for the very, mere fact that, hey, he looks like just me, like us, a Lasallian young student.

Gone are the days when mornings signal the start of a new hope. Today’s mornings have become a signal for another day of hunger. Afternoons have become a day for feeding one’s vices instead of studying. Nights, from being time for rest, became the time for evil to take form.

We are enveloped by negativity that we have let ourselves be consumed by the pessimistic world. This is the kind of society we have allowed to unfold – heaven that we chose to be wrapped in the detrimental arms of hell.