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Out of the blue.

December 12, 2011    |    0 COMMENT(S)

I took the Ateneo law entrance exam last Saturday. To say that I welcomed it with tremendous anxiety was an understatement: it was the first law admissions test I had to take (the UP LAE was moved to January 22), it was in an entirely different environment (hello, Rockwell), I had so many things to do last week regarding my acads, and the distress over my lola's passing is still pretty much a big factor in my current mental and emotional state.

But all the stress in the world doesn't excuse me from taking the exam. I saw two friends that day: Abby, a former classmate who is a Comparative Literature major (she graduated last April), and Maica, one of my friends from my LAE review. Seeing familiar faces definitely helped ease some nerves, but all throughout, the voice inside my head just kept screaming expletives out of panic (a la Lizzie McGuire's cartoon counterpart). The test was divided into three parts, with the first two given forty minutes each, and the last one an hour. Part 1 was like an IQ test that pretty much had all the reading comprehension, math, and abstract reasoning bundled up in one package. It was alright, and all throughout, I said to myself, "Kaya na 'to." Boy, did I speak too soon. Part 2 and Part 3 were all logic - strength and weakness of arguments, applicability of statements, truth and falsity of premises - the whole entire shebang. The questions per se were not other-worldly difficult, it's just that the time really was not enough. 100 questions in 40 minutes! And the passages were not at all short either. The reading comprehension part was tedious; I'm glad my literature background got my ass covered on that. The questions pertaining to logical reasoning weren't exactly alien to me, but of course it still required much mulling over - something you cannot do for long when given such limited time.

I did finish the test unscathed, thankfully. Results will be posted around the second week of April. Oh, the wait! The long, agonizing wait! I'm crossing my fingers - both for Ateneo and UP, of course. At this point I'm still in no place to choose where I would like to go - I haven't even taken the LAE yet; but my concern right now is just to do well on the exams. Maroon or blue would do fine by me. I've always been curious about what it would be like to be an Atenean, but of course, UP is my alma mater and I'd never want to leave. Let's just wait and see. (And try not to think about it for a while.)

It's been four years since I last felt this jittery over an entrance exam, four years since my intellect has been judged so severely. I feel like a high school senior, again. But unlike 2007, I guess I'm taking things in better stride now. I'm more relaxed (relatively) and more realistic than idealistic. Ah, maturity.

Ah, Rockwell.

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The whole time before the exam (including the previous night), I was talking to Inang, asking her to intercede for me. Both my immediate grandmothers dreamed of being lawyers - in fact, my maternal grandmother (whom I call Wowa) was already in her first or second year as a law student when she stopped because she had to work. Meanwhile, Inang graduated only from high school but her level of education was never the sole indication of her intelligence. I was with my Wowa the whole afternoon that Friday because she and my grandfather fetched me from UP, and she told me once again of her law school travails - which helped me feel less nervous about the upcoming test. But that night, I also found comfort in talking to Inang, even just inside my head. Somehow, in an ironic kind of way, it made things less menacing when I told her I was also doing it for her.

After the exam, I visited my aunt who lived with Inang. I was telling her about the test, and other school-related things, when I suddenly felt the urge to share with her my sadness over the lost picture. I was using her laptop that time because I was showing her something on Facebook when she thought of opening one album in her My Pictures folder. Lo and behold, there it was: the entire album of my high school graduation party, with all my pictures, including that of Inang and I.

I do not take it as a sign of me passing or anything, because finding that photo is not about law school - it's so much more than that. I guess it's a way of coming to terms with the reality of the events. While I still cannot say I have fully let go, I can at least acknowledge that I'm getting there. But of course, seeing the picture again was reassuring on so many levels. It affirms in me the permanence of love; that she is not lost, that she never will be.

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