Seagulls
THERE is this relatively cozy beach resort up north that me and my friends had gone to one time on impulse. It is relatively cozy because beach resorts are generally cozy, but that beach resort we went to, Parker Beach Resort, pales in comparison to the other beach resorts surrounding the island of Mactan. The reason probably is because it isn’t a vast beach resort. The beach is shared by two or three other beach resorts to both its left and right sides, the division marked by seawall-like constructions (until now I really do not know the English word for it). The artificiality of it all makes the sea less fascinating.
My friends and I went to the tip of one of the "seawalls" and stayed there as though the horizon were to be reached but that was the closest we could get to. I imagined we were seagulls doomed to stay there for all eternity because our wings were irreparably broken.
That afternoon, in fact, I had both of my wings broken, shot leisurely by no less than an arrogant college instructor who was handling the most uninteresting course I was enrolled in that semester -- Social Science I. I find him arrogant by the way he vouches to the whole class that a good way to eradicate prostitution is to legalize it. He raised a good point, in that if protitutes were to be legally recognized, less of them will pursue such line of work. No one, of course, wishes to be recognized as having a job generally spited. But he said it with so much certainty and self-admiration it made me retch. It would have been tolerable, though, had he not blended his arrogance with hypocrisy. But he is loads of hypocrisy. In one of his exams, he asked the question whether or not gay weddings should be sanctioned by the Catholic church. He marked my answer wrong for having said no. In my answer I reasoned that the Catholic church may not at all have to hold gay weddings, since homosexuality is something that the Catholic church discriminates. My point was, why should it be necessary to be recognized by the same institution that is first to look away when it comes to who you are and who you want to be with? But he marked my answer wrong. And whether I had said it well enough or not doesn’t matter. He was in disagreement with my opinion.
I guess he wanted to say homosexuality is something that should be unanimously accepted. Like I didn’t know it. Like I wasn’t one raving homosexual who could rub it in his face so hard the world will find out what a homophobe he really is.
I dislike him a lot. I dislike him not because that afternoon I found out he flunked me -- I totally deserved it -- but because he wasn’t one I could look up to well enough so I could take interest in his class and his opinions. He is, to me, no more than a bland thirty-year-old wizened by years of thinking he is beyond what he is, which isn’t so uncommon.
That was what brought us to the beach on impulse.
My friend, Carmen (not her real name), who flunked just as well as I did, suggested it after sobbing and cussing about all life’s injustice at the waiting shed outside our school. Her case was different. Her grade could have very well been a 4.0, which is redeemable, but our strictly reasonable instructor probably has it as a cardinal rule not to give out a grade of 4.0 even if that’s what the student really deserves and the course he is handling is merely an appreciation course.
The beach is such a place to seek unburdening. Dealing with a self-righteous instructor who places no portion of the blame on himself when a student of his fails felt like carrying the dead body of a person whom you didn’t kill alone, and there’s no other place to dump it to but the sea.
It was some distance we traveled, Carmen and I, and two more of our friends, Cecil and Abad (real names this time), who offered their sympathy. After two jeepneys and a tricycle we got to a beach in the neighboring island. We didn’t care which beach we were to get to. All we asked the tricycle driver was to get us to any beach at all where we didn’t have to pay for an entrance fee. The driver brought us to a beach resort where there are other beach resorts sharing the beach on either side. We didn’t care. Half of the four us was unburdening.
Until now I remember the smell of the sea, the smell of the rocks that smelt of the sea, and the faint sound of water gently splashing on all sides of the "seawall." It was relatively cozy.
I thought it was such a beautiful place to drown oneself.
My friends and I went to the tip of one of the "seawalls" and stayed there as though the horizon were to be reached but that was the closest we could get to. I imagined we were seagulls doomed to stay there for all eternity because our wings were irreparably broken.
That afternoon, in fact, I had both of my wings broken, shot leisurely by no less than an arrogant college instructor who was handling the most uninteresting course I was enrolled in that semester -- Social Science I. I find him arrogant by the way he vouches to the whole class that a good way to eradicate prostitution is to legalize it. He raised a good point, in that if protitutes were to be legally recognized, less of them will pursue such line of work. No one, of course, wishes to be recognized as having a job generally spited. But he said it with so much certainty and self-admiration it made me retch. It would have been tolerable, though, had he not blended his arrogance with hypocrisy. But he is loads of hypocrisy. In one of his exams, he asked the question whether or not gay weddings should be sanctioned by the Catholic church. He marked my answer wrong for having said no. In my answer I reasoned that the Catholic church may not at all have to hold gay weddings, since homosexuality is something that the Catholic church discriminates. My point was, why should it be necessary to be recognized by the same institution that is first to look away when it comes to who you are and who you want to be with? But he marked my answer wrong. And whether I had said it well enough or not doesn’t matter. He was in disagreement with my opinion.
I guess he wanted to say homosexuality is something that should be unanimously accepted. Like I didn’t know it. Like I wasn’t one raving homosexual who could rub it in his face so hard the world will find out what a homophobe he really is.
I dislike him a lot. I dislike him not because that afternoon I found out he flunked me -- I totally deserved it -- but because he wasn’t one I could look up to well enough so I could take interest in his class and his opinions. He is, to me, no more than a bland thirty-year-old wizened by years of thinking he is beyond what he is, which isn’t so uncommon.
That was what brought us to the beach on impulse.
My friend, Carmen (not her real name), who flunked just as well as I did, suggested it after sobbing and cussing about all life’s injustice at the waiting shed outside our school. Her case was different. Her grade could have very well been a 4.0, which is redeemable, but our strictly reasonable instructor probably has it as a cardinal rule not to give out a grade of 4.0 even if that’s what the student really deserves and the course he is handling is merely an appreciation course.
The beach is such a place to seek unburdening. Dealing with a self-righteous instructor who places no portion of the blame on himself when a student of his fails felt like carrying the dead body of a person whom you didn’t kill alone, and there’s no other place to dump it to but the sea.
It was some distance we traveled, Carmen and I, and two more of our friends, Cecil and Abad (real names this time), who offered their sympathy. After two jeepneys and a tricycle we got to a beach in the neighboring island. We didn’t care which beach we were to get to. All we asked the tricycle driver was to get us to any beach at all where we didn’t have to pay for an entrance fee. The driver brought us to a beach resort where there are other beach resorts sharing the beach on either side. We didn’t care. Half of the four us was unburdening.
Until now I remember the smell of the sea, the smell of the rocks that smelt of the sea, and the faint sound of water gently splashing on all sides of the "seawall." It was relatively cozy.
I thought it was such a beautiful place to drown oneself.
posted by Ryan Ben @ 10:20 PM
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