memories

last night was a walk down memory lane for me. this whole weekend is, actually. was in greenbelt with my 2 best buds from masscomm, kris and kate. the trio was ressurrected for a brief moment. i thought we would be up to our usual antics, (kris was, actually), but we ended up just comparing notes and being quiet with each other for sometime. actually, i was quiet for the most part, because i could see in kris the life i had passed up now that i am in law school.

fyi, for those of you who do not know kris, she is my bestest college bud. kris and i began working at the same time, doing the same kind of work, with the same job description for competitor companies. I was a media buyer at starcommedia and she was a media planner at universal mccann. the big difference there is she chose to stay and i left.

kris is living it up in makati. a nice job, a nice condo, and rooming in with a girl and 2 guys. she miraculously became a vegetarian and has suddenly realized she is model material so now she is a pseudo-model being asked to go on go-sees and test shoots. she is dating a "mr. big" type guy who just fell over himself after seeing her from afar in italiannis and just had to come over and introduce himself. this is the kind of life i envisioned when i resolutely decided this time senior year that i would not be taking the LAE just yet. i wanted to live it up as a gorgeous yuppie and find a nice gorgeous man to date who would see me from afar and fall madly in love with me.

and here i am in the up law library typing up my vicarious experience of the life i wanted to live.

last night we had dinner and saw bridget jones diary, and i almost cried because i felt like i was her. especially when she was talking to mark darcy explaining to him that at some point of everyday she will do something ridiculous to embarrass him because she will always be who she is: a girl who smokes like a chimney drinks like a fish and will always be a little bit too fat. and when she said that: i felt like my mind was being read. i, like her, had stumbled into the vip room looking for someone who would like me the way i am without having to fix me in one way or another. there, sitting between raya mananquil and boyfriend, and lucky manzano and date, i did feel like i had stumbled into the VIP room by mistake. luckily, no one asked me to leave.

i just came from the birthday party of the son of one of my masscom blockmates, tin tud, where i saw even more masscomm people and caught up with how they all were. they seemed suitably impressed to find out about me in law school (as everyone is when i am asked what i am doing and i answer i am a law student at the up college of law). but no matter how or by what stretch of imagination i try to see it, i feel as if i am being sucked more and more into this law vaccuum where my soul is slowly going and my personality is glowing its last few embers. a part of me wants to become kris. in all her makati-advertising world glory. a part of me wants to become jaja in all her showbizzy-happiness. and yet part of me seems content in the hope that maybe i (with my stereotypical law school gray slacks and cardigan as jaja so loudly pointed out) actually do belong in law school.

everyone seemed so happy with what they were doing. kai is with abs-cbn global and is dating every eligible guy in the network. jaja is doing fabulously with her wazzup wazzup stint as kikiam defensor-santiago and her axion commercials. isel is really happy and challenged doing research work in gma public affairs. mutch is all glowing with her account work for mccann and nestle. pia being gossiped about in abs because of her extremely good-looking boy in abs (yes, she managed to snag one of the last few ones who are straight, and whom kai has not dated yet), and tin looks impossibly happy with her little family. kate with her old-folks-married relationship with jas. everyone is happy and certain they are in the direction they want to be in. i wish i knew too.

but last night, as we were walking in sync, (ala the craft - me as neve campbell), scoping out the guys of greenbelt and gossiping with kris and kate, i felt like myself again. i wasn't sure if that feeling was more reassuring or disconcerting.