Happiness is a Warm, Steaming Pile of Hershey Squirt

Up to this day, it still baffles me that I, a mediocre student with an unremarkable GPA and a highly forgettable experience in the academe, find myself pursuing higher education and rubbing shoulders with some of the brightest minds at arguably the most prestigious school in the nation (clue: not at THE Ateneo).

Now, I am not the kind who boasts his accomplishments in people's faces. Actually the opposite, in fact. I really don't belong in a learning environment, let alone a space where people passionately talk about theories, key figures, and all that hullabaloo that seems to be the rage among graduate students. Every after class, I leave the room shamefaced after having been verbally plowed by my instructors every once in a while when I sleep during class or stumble with my words and idea during reports. They have great reason, you see.

So, as Thom Yorke would ask, "what the hell am I doing here?" Good question, but as anticlimactic my educational life has been, I could only shrug my shoulder.

Do you know the feeling that you have to do something you truly despise because, despite the benefits that you would sow in the future, profession-wise, your goal is to satisfy people? Loved ones, no less.

(Ah yes, dear readers. The phrase "loved ones" appears yet again in my self-absorbed yet strangely romanticized ramblings. Curses!)

I do not intend to put the blame on my "loved ones" for treading this oh-so-wrong path, but let it be know, reader, that my fate wrests solely on my hands, and I kicked the gates of failure to arrive at this beautiful mess. I chose to please.

But it's all in the blueprint, baby. As the saying goes, "when crap rains, crap pours." Right now, I'm swimming on the sea of shit and I'm...loving it??? But it's a necessary deep-dive into the deposit of dung, sooner or later, I will be able to swim through the river of rectum produce until I reach the promised land filled with non-chaffing tissue paper, free-flowing tap water, and lavender-scented soap.

Oh yes, it will happen. Because as my favorite philosopher Gottfried Leibniz said (here we go again), "PREDETERMINED EXISTENCE BABY LOLZ!!!!"