FTW Moments

As we belatedly, or, as I belatedly bid farewell to the year that was. Let me pay tribute to 2010 by remembering the definitive moment of my year. But in the spirit of 2011, I will end the year on a very positive note. I have already written the top ten wazak moments of the 2010 bar exam here. So I now present the ten FTW things.

10. Multicolored Booklets
I do not know about you, but with all the pressure inside and outside the exam room or in and out of La Salle, I find it refreshing that something or someone has not lost the idea of fun. Orange, Pink, Blue, Green. How can you hate the bar exams when you are answering in pastel colored papers? Must be a tactic, must be distraction, but it sure worked for me. Do you want to see what happens in a bag of NIPS? What goes on before it touches your lips? It makes an exam booklet!

9. Picnic at Taft
Lunch time! Yeah, the problem with the venue they do not have enough tables and chairs. The good thing about us we can do with what we have, and what we did was an instant picnic. Minus the basket and the mat, but the ants are ever present. Everyone else is eating like we are in Luneta.

8. The Bell
Archers might be familiar with the sound but to most of us it was the first time we will hear that kind of bell. The bell was to sound the end of the test with their rules of first bells and final alarm system. But the irony was the sound was, in my opinion, made to sound as casual and as friendly as it could. But during that four Sundays of September, it was the most dreadful and most hated sound. But I still love how it sounds. The same reason why it made the list.

7. Getting Lost in the Supreme Court
Getting my permit in the Supreme Court. Wasn’t really listening to the directions the guards were giving me. How could I? The grandeur of the place suffocated me. The tight security, the police dogs, the lawyers abound and around, and the tall, majestic neo-classical buildings. The old tiled floors, the old rickety elevators, the big empowering hard-wood doors, the stenciled metal name plates bearing the name of our sterling justices! How could you concentrate in such a place? I wasn’t able to and got lost, went to three different buildings ride three elevators and even got a tiny bit of gossip about a certain justice with death threats and a thousand bodyguards. All in all, Gulliver’s travel to Brobdingnag, and stood where giants once stood, and still standing and will forever stand on floors of discolored tile floors.

6. Dry Spell and Breakfast
It wasn’t wet. In my book that was the best weather forecast. There were some rain but we were never drenched. And this list is bullshit without me mentioning the breakfast buffet we have every Sunday morning.

5. Bus Ride to La Salle
The ultimate road trip! It would have been the scariest bus ride in our life and yet it was ever happy, ever fun. I never thought that the bus ride would be that light, but it was. Granted we were all pressured, we were all sleep deprived and unprepared for the task at hand but some bus ride feels more like an excursion or a field trip at some point. Laughter reverberates inside our bus and that eases a lot of tension. I could not think of a better way to La Salle with our hen mother escorting us and among friends walking along Taft just before dawn. Superb. Soothing. Magic.

4. Mass in the Church of Nuestra Señora de Remedios De Manila
The Church itself is already a perfect picture: well-preserved adobe, in baroque architecture. Façade facing the beautiful red light district (I kid!) no., the beautiful Raja Sulaiman Park and fronting the majestic, world famous Manila de Bay. How can one not fall in love with Remedios. I knew that I will hear mass in Remedios Church months before the bar exam. Not only because of its proximity to our hotel, but the meaning as well. Remedios or remedies, people go to this church for remedies. The parallel to the profession I chose resonates even further. And to give the most obvious, remedios, remedies, remedial law.
But the fascination does not end there, after the mass the pries would call on the bar examines and will have a special blessing for all of us. One word: Goosebumps. Called and heeded. Remedios Church will forever live in my heart.

3. Lecture by the Manila Bay Sunset
Manila bay is only known for two things… the world-renowned sunset and recently the lollipop lights. And so the most romantic last minute tips and lecture ever conducted in the history of bar operations. How can any lecture top those that we had? Our lecture was with the perfect weather, no gust of wind, no huge waves crashing along Roxas Boulevard and the setting sun being reflected by the calm Manila bay? The sometimes orange, sometimes pink sky will only be punctured by a flock of birds hovering over Manila Bay some are sailing with their yachts. As we listen to income taxes, Motion to Dismiss, to Murder and Constitutional Rights the water shined and shimmered right in front of us. It was splendid! Best Lecture ever!

2. RA
The best late nights I ever spent. I do not think that words will ever capture the long nights in RA so I will only spoil the experience by describing our encounters. But those nights will be cherished in years to come. You know who you are, and therefore I thank you for the knowledge and more so for the experience and fun. (this entry is sponsored by KFC)

1. Friends
I do not think that the Bar Exams is a test of knowledge in the intricacies of the law but it is a gauge of how you are loved by friends. And although it can never be measured by a lame grading system, I still think, with the friends I have, I beat Florenz Regalado with the highest grade ever. The visits, the gifts, the messages, the pat on the back, the supporting look, the encouraging smile. Makes up for the fact that I do not think I am ever prepared nor ready. I don’t think I have thanked them enough, I don’t think I will ever thank them enough. Bar exams is fleeting compared to great friends. I salute all of you. Again thank you…